


A Shadow Across

by sdlucly



Category: The OC (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Drama, First Time, Future Fic, M/M, Only not in Newport, Originally Posted on LiveJournal, Ryan being Ryan, Seth still needs more friends, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-30
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-02 17:08:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 53,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16791157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sdlucly/pseuds/sdlucly
Summary: The sky is light blue, and tinged with thick clouds as Ryan tilts his head back, hand shielding his eyes





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, I remember writing this fic! I loved this fic. This fic is a big part of me!

May, 27. 2009

The sky is light blue, and tinged with thick clouds as Ryan tilts his head back, hand shielding his eyes. The sun should be up, bright and early, and it feels weird that it's late May, the 27th, a Wednesday, and the best they can hope for is a warm mid morning. He remembers, four years ago, mid March, and the sun breaking through the dark clouds, warm from mid morning until about four in the afternoon, when the chilly wind would pick up and he'd be forced to put on a jacket.

He shakes his head, a curl at the left corner of his lips, and takes a turn right, and then another right, into Bobby's garage.

*****

He spends the afternoon tuning Barbara's brakes and changing the oil in her eight year old Toyota Yaris, because she always waits until the last possible minute, days after the green light has started to flicker, to finally bring it in. Ryan's heard Bobby tell her that a million times in the four years he's been here, and he's certain the man's probably told her a million more before that.

Barbara sighs, squeezes Ryan's hand as it rests on the edge of the hood of the car. She'll be back when the bank closes.

"I can have it done in two hours, three maybe." Ryan says with a nod. "I'm pretty sure Bobby has the parts out back."

She frowns. "Why, I didn't--"

Ryan ducks his head, grins to himself. "It's been two years now since the last change. Bobby thought you'd be coming here soon enough."

Her eyes narrow, and he can see her lips falling into a pout even as her eyes darken. She can turn into a girl with nothing but a look. Everyone always makes fun of Barbara inability of take good care of her car.

"Yeah, yeah." She snorts. "Thanks, sugar."

Ryan nods, glances at her sideways as she walks out of the garage.

"You might should have told her we didn't have no parts," Bobby says with a snort, a shake of his head.

Ryan rolls his eyes, turns around and leans against the side of the car, watching Bobby clean his hands in a rag that's almost as dirty as the hands. "You have the parts."

The man snorts. "That don't mean nothing, boy. That woman should learn to treat her car better, that's what she should do. She's had that thing for seven years. I remember her, driving in with her brand new car--"

Ryan sighs, leans back comfortably, folds his arms over his chest, rests his right ankle against the opposite one. He knows Bobby, and this story takes a while. He's heard it a hundred times.

"--bought back in the city, happy as a clam. Oh, I remember. I told her that day, I told her, you need to learn to treat a car better than the last one."

Ryan chuckles. The last one, he knows, was a dark green bug that had to be fifty years old, a gift from her grandfather. She crashed it nine times (eleven, people say, but Ryan isn't counting the two times she went over the ditch coming from a party) in the four years she had it. The last time, the way the story goes, her parents told Bobby to tell her that it was done for good. They then told their darling daughter that she could walk to work, for all they cared, because they weren't buying her a car.

It takes her seven years and marrying Mark -- a pretty decent lawyer she met in Oklahoma City and who fell so much in love with her that he didn't seem to think twice about leaving his practice and moving over here to open a small consulting firm that deals with nothing more exciting than wills and transfer titles of trucks, nothing even close to the mergers he used to be a part of -- to finally afford a car. Bobby keeps saying, one of these days, Mark's gonna come here just like her daddy did years ago, and ask him to tell her that the car is done in for good, she better start wearing flats to work.

The call comes in just as Bobby is really starting to get into it, counting all eleven times Barbara crashed her car, how from the first time, when she couldn't even get it out of the goddamn garage, who crashes a car getting out of the goddamn garage, he knew that girl was gonna be trouble on wheels. He picks it up because Bobby hates people calling, doesn't know why someone would call, because he's here from nine to six, unless a car needs longer and the person is in a rush, and that's never, and he's been here from nine to six the last forty years, since he took over from his pop when he was sixteen, so it ain't like people don't know he'll be here.

But it's Zoe, who's been left in charge of the police station again (it's just her and Matthew now, and Matthew tends to do the patrols alone) and she got a call on the radio from Joseph about a boy being stranded along the dirt road that runs parallel to the 54.

"Joseph says he would have given the boy a ride," Zoe tells Ryan over the phone, a smile in her voice and Ryan nods, leans back against the side of the desk. "But the kid took one look at that big ass of a trunk Joseph has and shook his head, started muttering under his breath about serial killers and never seeing the light of day again and him being too thin to actually put up too much of a fight."

He hears her laugh, a nice sound on this not so sunny day, and nods along, because, yeah, he would be afraid of Joseph -- all six four and over two hundred eighty pounds of black man -- and that truck that is older than Ryan is at the moment, if he were to meet the man over the side of the road. He was, actually. So long ago. And so he doesn't fault the kid for not wanting to jump into the truck. The kid had no way of knowing that Joseph loves kittens more than he loves pie, and that's saying a lot. 

"It's okay," Ryan says, takes off his cap and wipes off his forehead with the back of his hand before putting it back on, backwards. "I'll head over there. Where did you say it was?"

*****

It takes Ryan less than forty minutes to get there, mostly because the tow truck is as old as Bobby himself, and the thing doesn't do more than twenty on a good day. He's still thirty feet away when he notices the color of the plates, realizes it's not a local. Not that he wouldn't have, five minutes later, when he's putting the truck in park and jumping out. And apparently, the kid doesn't know to recognize the familiar thud thud thud sound of a tire that's about to blow, if the strips of rubber the road has been showered with is any indication.

He lifts his eyes from the rubber on the pavement to really look at the kid for the first time. Ryan can see dark eyes and dark curls, clear skin, nice face. He's wearing loose fitting jeans, a dark long sleeve t-shirt and a short sleeve t-shirt over it. He's sitting in the passenger seat, door wide open, feet firmly planted on the ground. His hand is shielding his eyes, even though the sun is not yet high in the sky, still hiding behind thick clouds.

The kid glances at him doubtfully, then over his shoulder at the tow truck, before shifting to the car door. Ryan can't help but smile inwardly, thinks about the kid wondering about his chances of closing the door fast enough, of it holding against him if Ryan really wanted to hurt him. It probably wouldn't.

"Hey," Ryan says, his tone calm and collected, a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips. He's been told he does friendly like the best of them. Pretend has always been easy for him.

The kid narrows his eyes slightly, his right hand tightening on the edge of the door, where the window is completely rolled down. "Hey."

He falls silent for a second, doesn't know exactly what to say. "Do you need some help?"

The kid seems to hesitate for a second, before shrugging and nodding as he does so. Ryan nods back.

*****

_It was stupid, actually fucking stupid, of Trey to think that he could hotwire a car while being high and drunk. But he did. And Ryan followed. That was ten times even more stupid._

_It was August 7th, a Thursday, and it was late and the only reason Ryan was still at that bar with Trey was because they had been betting at pool and winning. And then out of the twenty three bucks he earned, Trey asked for ten to score some. Ryan gave it to him._

_The next morning, Ryan walked down the hallway, the cuffs tight around his wrists. He didn't mind, he didn't know why. The guard opened the door to the cell, interrogation room, whatever._

_He could still hear the sirens wailing around him, the smell of beer on Trey's clothes, Trey's laughter loud in his ears. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest and this feeling of wrongness from the moment Trey chose the car to when they hit that power thing. He screamed No, no, no, but it was useless, Trey was too drunk to care, to make a quick turn, to even choose the right time and place and car to steal. This wasn't the first time they'd done this, just the first time they'd gotten caught._

_He walked into the place, sat in one of those stupid small stools. The man stood up before him, gave him a quick grin, a patronizing gaze._

_"Hello," the man said, with his big blue eyes and sun bleached hair. "I'm Richard Care, your public defender."_

_Ryan gave him a quick glance, up and down, then grimaced. The man snorted._

_"Where's my brother?"_

*****

It doesn't take long to get the gray sedan up on the truck, and the kid just stands back and watches, arms folded over his chest, his bag being hugged tight against his chest. Ryan wonders about that.

"My name's Ryan, by the way," he says with shrug of his shoulders, taking a step back and securing the car so it won't slide down on the way into the garage. And that only happened once.

The kid nods, shifts his weight from one foot to the other. "Nice meeting you. Seth. Seth Cohen."

Ryan nods again, smiles, this time more natural on his lips. He jumps into the cab of the truck, and leans to open the passenger door. Seth just stares at it as if he has never seen one before. Ryan watches Seth almost take a step back.

"It's okay. The town is only a little over half an hour from here." He thinks about adding more, that there's the garage there and there's Nellie's restaurant, nice and homey and maybe some lunch and a soda is just what he needs, but he doesn't know if that'll help or not. The kid looks too scared to be good for his health.

After a moment, Seth nods, and jumps into the cab of the truck. "Thanks," Seth says, his voice low, looking down at his lap before glancing up as Ryan pulls off the side of the road. "Hmm. Thanks." 

Ryan nods. "Sure, don't mention it."

They fall into silence for almost five minutes before Seth breaks it. "So, um. That guy, he said he'd call someone."

"Joseph, yeah. He called Zoe about it, let her know you were stranded. She called us."

"Us?"

"Bobby's garage. I work there." Ryan takes a right, and then catches the 54. "I take it you took a wrong turn."

Seth sighs, and then groans before leaning his head back. Ryan smiles for some reason. "Yeah, yeah. It's so stupid. That car is supposed to have GPS, you know? But either it's a very old model or a very new model, and I'm really leaning toward the first one, because I must have hit something and it all went weird on me and when I clicked it on again, it just wouldn't start. It kept saying, _Recalculating._ "

Ryan chuckles, low in his throat, smiling slightly, and for a moment he thinks Seth will fall quiet once again, but Seth only laughs along and shakes his head.

"Stupid, right? So then I rummaged in the glove compartment for a map or something that would actually let me know where I was and I found this Oklahoma map that's all yellow and wrinkly and I tried reading it, but apparently I suck at that too, because I couldn't tell one way from the other and I kept trying to remember if the sun goes down in the east or the west and I couldn't, so I just took a right somewhere and, like, an hour later that stupid tire blew."

Ryan shrugs, doesn't know what to say to that. The roads are tricky in these parts, mostly because besides the 40 and the 183, they tend to swirl up against one another, and unless you really know your way around, one can get lost. 

"Maybe I should have gone with that guy. Joseph, right?"

Ryan nods. "Yeah, Joseph. He's nice. He just looks threatening."

"I was sure he was gonna kill me and eat me and all that." He grimaces, glances at Ryan before grimacing again. "Sorry. You probably know him and--"

His eyes on the road, Ryan shrugs. "Joseph looks the part, yeah. It's not your fault." He glances at Seth from the corner of his eyes.

Ryan watches Seth surreptitiously, noticing the way his fingers lingers on the edge of the bag as if it's protecting his life, almost. A moment later, Seth takes out his cell phone from his pocket, opens it, and Ryan half hides a smile.

"I'm sure this is going to sound all kinds of stupid," Seth says with a grimace on his lips, self-deprecating. "But, my cell phone doesn't have any signal. Do you know what's up with that?"

Ryan doesn't look away from the road, but a grin is on his lips. "There are no cell towers around here and some patches of the road around the town, but in the town itself, yeah, sure, you'll get a signal there." He glances at Seth, notices the way the kid has one hand around the cell phone, like it's saving his sanity. "You tried to call, huh?"

Seth nods, looking out the window, and Ryan frowns and stares back at the road. "Yeah," Ryan hears him say, not turn around this time. "It took two and a half hours for that man, Joseph, to come through. I was afraid to walk away from the car, I'm not good with directions."

Ryan smiles. Smart thing, too, because he could have gotten lost, and he doesn't want to think about what could have happened.

He feels Seth's eyes on him, and when he glances to the right, Seth's looking directly at him, smile on his face. Ryan can feel his face softening.

"Thanks," Seth says, and Ryan shrugs.

*****

Bobby checks the car, because Ryan's supposed to be changing Barbara's brakes, and so he only hears Bobby tell Seth that the tire is out, for good, and he'll have to order one from the city because he only has spares for trucks and tractors this time of the year.

"Oh," Ryan hears Seth say from his spot under Barbara's Toyota. "Okay. Sure. Um, how long do you think it'll take?"

"I can go there tomorrow morning, be back before dark." Ryan hears Bobby say. "I could have the car back to you the following day, kid. Friday, bright and early."

Ryan pauses in adjusting the brake pads.

"Friday. Okay. Good. I'll pay extra, of course. Thanks."

Ryan sighs, and then blinks at the bottom of the car; Barbara really did a number on the brake pads. Another couple of weeks and the timing belt would have blown. He doesn't shake his head because he would end up hitting it on something and then cursing up a storm, and Bobby doesn't like that because he says the missus then ends up giving him the evil eye, as if she can tell -- she probably can, Ryan, I'm telling you; women are weird like that -- that they've been cursing or Bobby had a smoke with Pete when he came by. 

It takes him another twenty minutes to feel pleased with the work, and then he's sliding from under the car, letting his feet hit the farthest wall because so far in the garage there's only Barbara's Toyota and the sedan. He's lying there, on the dolly, arms folded over his chest, when he blinks and cocks his head to the side, only now seeing Seth sitting on the ground, back against the wall, legs stretched before him.

"Hey," Ryan says, jumping to his feet, wiping his hands on the rag in the back pocket of his jeans. "I thought you'd," he says, shrugging before finishing the sentence.

Seth blinks and looks up, as if he hadn't noticed Ryan had been under the Toyota. He glances at his car, then back at Ryan and shrugs. "Yeah, I should leave, right? It's just that..." He says, trailing off, turning his head around to look out of the wide open doors of the garage, out into their main street that's empty and will be empty until six when most shops close and people head home. Seth turns around once again, and Ryan catches his eyes. "Um, is there somewhere around here where I could stay?"

He's never been one to take breaks, not even when there are no cars to work on, not even when Bobby had suggested he might want to go to the restaurant across the street for lunch instead of staying in the garage.

"Sure," he says, his voice low, cleaning his hands once again on the rag. "I can show you."

*****

_He got a phone call, got to call his mom, got to tell her that he had been picked up and Trey wasn't even going to make bail and could she come and pick him up?_

_She did, four hours later. Ryan sat on the curb outside the police station, men walking in and out giving him a sideways glance, snorting under their breath. Ryan clenched his jaw and waited._

_She arrived around four in the afternoon, the car making stupid noises even as she pulled into the street, car half parked on the pavement and half on the sidewalk._

_"Unbelievable! What kinda family I got, huh? What the HELL did I do to deserve this family? You want to tell me that?"_

_He rolled his eyes and walked toward her, stopped as he reached the passenger side door._

_"You're gonna end up rotting in jail," she spat, and he looked away, down and away. "Just like your Dad's doing, just like his your brother's gonna."_

_She got in the car and Ryan sighed, pulling the door open and getting in before she continued to yell._

_He didn't say a word._

*****

There's not much to show off in Shadow's Willow, not really, but it's still three in the afternoon and though Ryan had a sandwich for lunch, when he asks Seth if he's hungry, he can hear Seth's stomach growling.

He sees Seth snort, duck his head and shake it at the same time.

"Sorry," Seth says with a shrug, a chuckle. "I figured I could drive through lunch and be in Ponca by the end of the day, maybe even earlier."

Ryan frowns, titling his head as they cross the street to Nellie's restaurant. He hasn't really asked Seth if he likes roasted chicken with gravy and mashed potatoes, but he figures everyone has to love Nellie's cooking.

He pauses as his hand touches the glass pane of Nellie's restaurant. "You're going to Ponca city?"

Seth nods, frowning as he does so, walking after Ryan into the place. Ryan says hello to Mr. Clark and Mr. Lopez talking at the corner of the counter, and then at Nellie smiling back at him, notepad in her hand. They take a seat in one of the booths, the place almost empty after the lunch rush.

"Ryan, nice seein' you getting out of that garage." Nellie smiles at both of them as they sit, and then she turns to regard Seth. "And this must be the boy Joseph run into, huh?"

Ryan can see Seth's lips pressing into a thin line, and he understands him. He had become resigned to it three years ago, when after already living here for almost a year, he realized he was still being called boy. He still was half the time.

"Nice to meet you," Seth says, cold in his politeness, even though it goes right past Nellie. She grins and nods and hands them a menu that no one really uses, everyone has been eating here since forever.

Nellie grins, because she can't not, and then tells them she'll give them a minute to decide what they want, and the apple pie is fresh. 

"It's a small town," Ryan says as part of his explanation, a shrug of his shoulders. "Gossip and wildfire, and I bet you that the moment you walked into the garage, everyone knew you were there."

Seth nods, and picks up his menu and focuses on it so intently, Ryan's left to frown at the dark curls on top of Seth's head. _This is one weird kid_ , Ryan can't stop himself from thinking, and then half a smile forms at the corner of his lips.

It takes Seth almost ten minutes to choose the chicken and gravy and mash potatoes, say something about home cooked meal and how he never really had it, considering his mother was never one to cook. Seth's lips press tight on that sentence, and Ryan doesn't ask, just shrugs and asks for a slice of pie for himself, considering he already had lunch. Seth takes one look at the pie and asks for one for himself. Ryan nods and digs in, Seth follows shortly.

*****

It's only after they've had lunch -- Seth had lunch, and second servings of the chicken because he was starving and airport food was not breakfast, anyone knows that -- that Ryan remembers what Seth said before going in.

"You're going to Ponca City?"

Seth frowns for a moment, at the non sequitur, and Ryan can feel a dark blush rising on his cheeks because that's not him, even talking this much is not him. "Yeah," he says, nodding as he does so. "Yeah, I'm working for this magazine. Online magazine and the pay doesn't even cover my gas bill, but it's work, and they want me to interview a new, up and coming writer in his hometown. Why?"

Ryan rubs the back of his neck with his right hand, not sure how to say this without making Seth feel like an idiot. He knows he would. "Ponca is up north from the city. We're west. It's about two hundred miles from here; you could get there in three hours," he says, shrugs, and he can see Seth cursing under his breath.

He watches Seth turn around, back to him, and he thinks Seth might be tempted to pull at his hair if he wasn't biting back really nasty words. Ryan chuckles, because he doesn't know what else to do, and the image is really funny, and maybe in years to come, Seth will be able to laugh about being stranded in the middle of nowhere that one time he had to interview an up and coming writer.

It takes Seth a minute to calm down, and Ryan just stands there, waits him out, leaning against the mail box at the side of the street, arms folded on his chest.

"Okay, okay. It's okay. I can work with this. I can. I'm supposed to be writing, damn it, this could be a chapter. The day I turned around and ended up in the middle of nowhere, chapter. I can totally work with this."

The corner of Ryan's mouth curls into a smile, and he nods along, not knowing what else to do, finding amusement in doing it just the same.

"So." Seth says, finally turning around, looking back at him. Ryan notices the dark eyes, the pull at the corners, the way his eyebrows lift and then lower. "I took a wrong turn."

Ryan nods, because that looks a hell of a lot nicer than saying, "Hell yeah." He shrugs. "You were supposed to take the 35, but took the 40 instead."

He wants to say, anyone can make that mistake, but he'd be lying, and he thinks Seth would know that too. 

Seth grimaces before snorting, muttering something along the lines of, of course, of course that would happen to me. Ryan stays quiet until Seth sighs one final time, before shrugging and jerking his head across the street, to the garage.

"I gotta get back. There's a small bed and breakfast across Main Street, down one corner to your left. It's mostly Rossana with five rooms on the second and third floor, but it's nice and clean, and the only place close by." He doesn't know what else to say, and Seth just looks back at him, blinking. "I'll probably see you tomorrow."

"Yeah, sure," Seth says, mouth slowly working at the words, as if they are unfamiliar to him. 

Ryan nods once again -- a stupid movement, slow as molasses, incomplete -- before turning around and jogging across the street. There's Jackson's truck when he walks in, and he's surprise he didn't hear the thing pull in when they were in the restaurant, the exhaust pipe is so old, it makes this whiny growling noise everyone in town is familiar with. It was his daddy's, sentimental value and all that, that stops him from buying a new one.

"Oil change and tuning. He says he was hearing something whining from under." Ryan looks up at Bobby, leaning against the doorframe leading to the small office, rag in hand. "I told him we can check it out, probably be done before we close down."

Ryan nods and gets what he needs, pulls the dolly to him and sits down on it. He pushes himself under the car with his feet, until he's under the truck, figures he might as well check the whole thing.

Not even two minutes later, he hears someone walking in. He frowns, cocks his head to the side enough to see out from under the car, and can see sneakers no one in town would wear.

He pushes himself out from under the car, then looks up at Seth upside down. Seth gives him a twitch of his lips, half a shrug of slender shoulders. "Sorry," he says, looks around and ends up sitting on the cold cement floor, back against one wall.

Ryan frowns, pushes himself to a sitting position and swirls around so he's actually facing Seth. "What, what happened?"

Seth shrugs, looks down at his feet, and Ryan looks at the way he toes the ground, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He wants to ask, but doesn't know why, doesn't even know the question least of all the answer.

"I don't know..." Seth says, shifts on the floor and shrugs again, looks at Ryan and Ryan thinks he sees something he shouldn't be seeing, something he shouldn't even recognize, only he does. Seth laughs, and the sound is hollow and dark and horrible, and Ryan doesn't want to hear that sound coming from this kid ever again.

"I'm in the middle of nowhere and I don't know what to do, which doesn't surprise me, really, only that it does and I'm kinda torn, because I should be writing. I've been writing this book for the last three years, since I got into Brown, only it's only a Word file and a hundred little sentences about things I want to written in, only I don't even know where to start."

Words are easy for Seth, Ryan thinks, tilting his head to the side and hearing them make their way out of Seth's lips and into the thin air between them, chilling with the afternoon wind making its way through the wide open doors. Words are easy, and that's something to know.

"So I'm not writing that, that's for sure and I called Steve -- that's my boss, only not really. He's twenty nine, and did I tell you this is an online magazine, so of course my boss is twenty nine. So, I called Steve and he laughed for a good while before letting me know that he'll be calling Andrew -- the idiot writer that of course has to be from the middle of nowhere, only up north and not west -- to let him know I won't be there for another two days. So," he says, finally, and Ryan can almost feel the curl of his lips, the way they twitch but don't really move, "I don't really know what to do with myself."

Ryan leans back until he's resting on the side of the trunk, stilling the dolly with his feet planted on either side of it. He swallows and watches Seth snort, then chuckle deep in his throat before tipping his head back until it's resting against the wall. 

He glances at the office, where Bobby is going through the books because there is not much work left to do and it's already a quarter to five. It doesn't take two people to run this place, but Bobby is getting older and after his fall two years ago, Laura has been slowly but surely trying to convince him to go home earlier, let Ryan open in the mornings more times than not. He turns to look back at Seth and sighs, figures, he can do this, it's okay. Bobby won't mind.

"You can stay, if you'd like," he says shrugging, glances over his shoulder to the right to the car, "but I gotta finish this. I mean, if you don't mind me working."

Seth nods rapidly, almost pathetically grateful, and then he's ducking his head, looking away, and Ryan can see a blush coloring his cheeks. The kid doesn't like this, wanting to stay so badly, and that Ryan saw it. He gets it. He's been there before. 

"Okay," Ryan says, nods, and a moment later he's lying back down, pushing the dolly to the underbelly of the truck.

*****

_He licked the corner of his lips, where it was split, hissing as he did so. He shook his head and fuck if it didn't matter, not really. He could feel his head pounding, his cheekbone tender and the small cut on his eyebrow itching. He'd had worse._

_Theresa said she can't ask her mom, not right now, she had this huge fight with Arturo over one thing or the other. And Eddie swore he didn't have room, his brother was staying with him. Carlos and Miguel were no different, and in the end, Ryan hit the side of the phone booth with his left hand, the pain hard and swift and good. He took in a deep breath and exhaled it through his mouth, leaned his head forward against the edge of the booth._

_It wasn't the fucking end of the world. It wasn't. He'd... he'd done this before, too._

_He turned around and picked up his backpack, slung it over one shoulder, got on his bike. He'd go down to the pier, to that small bar in the south corner. He could play a couple of tables, make some money from pool. He had thirteen bucks on him, the other ten Trey had asked him for to score some that night, which is now in the hands of the police. Twenty or thirty would be enough, to eat something today, maybe buy a beer. If by nightfall he still didn't find anywhere to crash, he could always go to the park. No one would bother him there._

_Tomorrow, if Theresa's mom was still pissed and Eddie was being a pussy, then he could play some more, hang out at the beach. Just get away from his mom and bide his time. Just today and tomorrow, another night at the park won't kill him, and then on Sunday morning, Ryan was certain, it would be safe to go home. She would have cooled off._

*****

"I'm from Newport, California. Hmm. It's a nice place, all things considered. Okay, no, not really. It's not a nice place at all. I hated it. Hated it with the heat of a thousand suns, like I once read somewhere. It was... it wasn't nice. It was horrible. I liked Berkeley better."

"Berkeley?"

"Yeah. I was born there. But then..." A pause, a shift. A shrug Ryan can almost see. "My grandma got sick and my parents had to move back to Newport and my torture began. I begged to be sent to boarding school for so long, it was almost a mantra."

"Oh."

"Yeah. Well. Um. Doesn't matter. Got away from it, in the end."

Silence, nice and slow and fitting, with Ryan breathing in and out, hands going through the motions he knows like second nature.

"Where are you from, anyway?"

"Chino."

"Oh, California, right?"

"Yeah."

"Weird. I can't believe we never met."

Ryan wants to snort but doesn't.

"I don't even know your last name, you know?"

"Atwood."

"Nice meeting you, Ryan Atwood."

Ryan smiles at the iron and inside of the truck, calm and collected and more fitting than the silence. "Nice meeting you, Seth Cohen."

*****

"I hated high school."

"Almost everyone hates high school."

"Oh, _no_ …. almost everyone doesn't _like_ high school, and most people have a horrible experience, sure, I get it, but I hated it. It was... it was torture, I tell you."

"I thought torture was Newport."

"Well, it's like saying what came first, the egg or the stupid chicken, you know? One thing can't be bad enough without the other. High school might not have been so utterly disgusting if it had happened somewhere that wasn't Newport. I could almost prove that theory." A pause, an intake of breath. "Did you like high school?"

Ryan's hands still for a second, and then he shakes his head, even though Seth can't see him. "No." He never finished it, he doesn't say. He never made it to sophomore year, too focused on Austin and working for whatever would pay enough to eat that week. He swallows. "Not really."

"Yeah, thought so."

*****

_He went back on Sunday morning, around ten, after having three stale donuts from that shop down at the pier. He knew the guy that works there, Steven, a friend of Eddie's from school, he thought. There went a dollar, and now he only had seven left from that game he won last night, from those two brothers._

_His neck itched from two days without taking a shower, and washing his face in the gas station's bathroom just doesn't cut it. He'd changed t-shirts but not sweatshirts, and he could feel himself smelling two days past rotten._

_Two days, more than enough, even AJ probably forgot all about it and his bruised cheekbone was almost completely healed by now._

_AJ's truck wasn't parked on the front lawn like usual, at least at this time of day. He should be sleeping off last night's bender, along with his mom. Ryan frowned, then let his bike fall against the steps to the front door, taking out his keys._

_He opened the door and there was nothing inside. No couch or TV, no bottles piled up on the counter in the kitchen, no residue of lines on the table that wasn’t there. Nothing._

_He went through the hallway to the two adjoining rooms, both their doors wide open. Nothing inside. The mattress outside had to be one that used to be in his bedroom, where Trey and him slept. He went back out, leaned his forehead against the top cupboard in the kitchen. There was a letter on the counter._

_He closes his fingers around it, then closed his eyes and hit his forehead against the cupboard, hard. Then again, and again, and a fourth time. The dog two houses down from his wasn't barking, and Lucia's two year old twins from across the street weren't crying. The street was quiet for once._

_Everything was quiet._

*****

"I used to go sailing."

Ryan doesn't think he's ever met anyone who's gone sailing. "Really?"

"Yeah. I used to teach it, too. To kids, mostly, as a bit of a summer job. It was good. They were nice, the kids, I mean. They were nice. Hmm. Yeah." Ryan can almost hear Seth shrugging. "I haven't gone sailing since senior year. Wow. Four years. That's a hell of a long time."

"What, why?"

A pause, silence, and Ryan works on the car with the wind as background, Seth's breathing blending with it, becoming one. There's the clatter of the wrench almost falling from his fingers when he tries to loosen a screw.

"I sold my boat. It was... it was called Summer Breeze. It was named after this girl. Uh, I liked her. I really liked her." Seth laughs, the same laugh Ryan wishes he had the power to take away, to make Seth forget the need for that kind of laugh. "It was stupid, I should have known. She never gave me the time of day, that's for sure, never mind her best friend was my next door neighbor. I just got tired of it, sold it. Kept the money for Brown, wanted to buy something that would _show her_ , only I never knew what that could be."

Sorry, Ryan thinks, would not in a million years begin to cut it.

"I haven't thought about her in three years. Huh. Weird."

Ryan doesn't know what to say, so he says nothing.

*****

"You don't know the difference between Marvel and DC?"

Ryan laughs, and almost lifts his head and gives himself a concussion. "No, Seth. I don't."

"But, dude! How? It's not... Dude! It's almost insanely ludicrous, that you don't know the difference."

"I thought you were majoring in English. Shouldn't you speak better?"

"I speak good."

Ryan laughs, and this time he does lift his head and it hurts like a son of a bitch. "It's well."

"I knew that. And just so you know, I'm teaching you the difference even if it's the last thing I do, I swear to God."

Another pause, a breath. "I'd like that."

*****

It's almost six by the time he's done with the truck, and Barbara walks in with a smile on her face, her eyes looking for her car and finding it in a second. "Oh, is it ready or I got to call Mark to pick me up?"

Ryan throws the keys to Barbara, who catches them with the swift movement of her wrist in mid air. 

"Thanks," she says, rushing to her car and getting inside. He wipes his hands as he watches Barbara get inside, turn on the engine and hears it purr without a complaint, happy to have been taken care of. Barbara is beaming by the time she gets out of the car, smile on her lips. 

"Ryan, thanks," she says again, and he can almost see the desire to hug him, but he shrugs and then wraps his hands tighter around the rag. She nods back at him.

"I might should charge you double," Bobby says from his place by the truck, "for what you're putting that car through, kid."

Barbara rolls her eyes and Ryan hides a smirk as he ducks his head, Seth glances between Barbara and Bobby. And it's weird, in a way, to see them through a stranger's eyes. To maybe see the whole town through a stranger's eyes. It's been almost four years since he found his way here, since that August in oh five when he just couldn't take it anymore, was fed up with Austin and Dallas, with Texas itself, and needed to get out, and headed up north which was as good as anything else. He'd had Lawton, or Oklahoma City in mind. Only, it didn't happen that way, and then he was stranded in the middle of nowhere, making his way down a dirt road, literally making his way down when Joseph stopped and asked if he needed a ride.

"Bobby--"

"How many times have I told you, huh? It ain't gonna kill ya to treat them better."

"I came here, didn't I?"

"Two months too late, that's what you did." Bobby snorts, shakes his head once and Barbara laughs, taking a step closer to him, rummaging in her purse for her wallet.

Ryan hears the phone ring and makes his way to the office again, taking off his cap and letting it fall onto the desk. "Hello."

_"If that boy is still there, you best be bringing him home for dinner. He ain't nothing but skin and bones."_

Ryan sighs, looking over his shoulder at Seth, leaning against the threshold, arms folded on his chest. He doesn't blame Seth for not wanting to stay there, considering Bobby's probably giving Barbara the spiel about how she's torturing her car, that's what she's doing, she knows perfectly well, while Barbara rolls her eyes and chuckles under her breath. He turns around, half sitting on the edge of the desk. "He's here."

_"Good. Bring him on over. I'm fixing chicken-fried steak."_

"Mrs. Landingham--"

_"No, no. I don't want to hear no nothing about it. Bring him on. He's so skinny, a hard wind 'ld probably blow him away. Hmpf. I wouldn't be surprised."_

"I don't really think--"

_"He staying down there with Rossana? That old place is drafty, and him with no meat on his bones. He better come stay with us."_

"Um, I don't see where--"

_"It's not like this place ain't big enough. You don't take so much space as a mouse; I told you before."_

"Mrs. Lan--"

_"And you best be here by seven. I don't want dinner to be getting cold. My biscuits and gravy ain't no good if'n they're cold."_

Ryan sighs, pinches the bridge of his nose. It's not like he can say no to the woman, though it's not like he hasn't tried before. "Of course, Mrs. Landingham. Seven."

_"Good. You be careful drivin' home. You hear?"_

He nods, says that he does hear, he'll be careful, and a second later he's hearing the dial tone where Mrs. Landingham voice used to be.

He hangs up the phone, and can hear Bobby and Barbara still going at it out in one of the bays of the garage. He can feel the corners of his lips curling upward, and watches the way Seth tilts his head, confusion plainly in his eyes, and more than a little bit of curiosity.

"So," Ryan says with a shrug, a lift of his eyes eyebrows. "You got any plans for dinner?"


	2. Chapter 2

Ryan parks the tow truck on the driveway leading up to the house, pulling the key out of the ignition, hearing the engine die with a whine. He glances up at the house, at the light coming from the living room windows, and knows that Mrs. Landingham is probably still in the kitchen cooking, focused on her desire to put some meat onto Seth's bones. The two-story house looks imposing in the stillness of the night, in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by trees and an expanse of land as far as the eye can see.

"Are you sure about this?"

Ryan turns to look to his right, where Seth's narrowed eyes -- concern, confusion, fear? -- are staring at the house. "Well, Mrs. Landingham made it very clear that she wanted you to come over for dinner, so, yeah, I guess."

Seth grimaces, then says in a low voice. "I really don't think this is a good idea." He glances down at the bag on his lap, and Ryan thinks of the three others back in the bed of the truck that Seth got from his car. "I could call a cab, get to that place you told me about earlier today."

Ryan smiles, shakes his head once and jumps out of the cab of the truck. He hears Seth do the same. "First of all, there are no cabs here in Shadow's Willow, and second," he shrugs, "she asked."

Seth nods, but Ryan can almost see the hesitation in his eyes, and he gets it, gets it more than probably anyone else could understand.

I've been there before, he thinks, getting Seth's bags from the back of the truck, two in one hand, the remaining in the other. I was there until last year, last month, yesterday still. I might always be in that state when you fear you've overstayed your welcome.

"I've got it." Seth rushes to Ryan's side, picks up two of the bags by the handle, half pulling them out of Ryan's hands. "You don't need to--"

"I don't mind."

"No, really, _I've got it._ "

Ryan blinks, standing where he is, not ten feet from the truck, hands around the handles of the bags, Seth holding onto the same handles where they meet the bags. He nods, lets them go, lets Seth take them. "Sure. You've got it."

Seth takes two even as he slides his arm through the handle of the bag he hasn't let go since Ryan met him, then extends his hand for the remaining one. Ryan doesn't hesitate, only gives it over, and Seth takes that one too.

They walk silently to the house, the only sound besides the chirping of the birds and hooting of the owls is the clattering of keys on a keychain as Ryan places them back in his pocket. He doesn't need them. He pulls open the screen door, and then the front door, before holding both open for Seth, who nods his thanks and walks inside.

He has only just closed both behind him when he hears Mrs. Landingham calling from the kitchen. "Well, what are y'all doing out there? Come in and set the table."

Ryan rolls his eyes, says, "Coming, Mrs. Landingham." He turns to Seth, standing there, bags in hand, a concerned look on his face, hesitant. "Just leave them there. The bedrooms are upstairs."

Seth nods, places the bags carefully on the floor, by the large couch before following him to the kitchen.

"Table," Mrs. Landingham greets Ryan with the jerk of her head toward the table in the corner of the kitchen, her gaze still fixed on the pot boiling before her on the stove.

"And good evening to you too, Mrs. Landingham," Ryan says with a smile, hearing Mrs. Landingham's, "Hmpf."

"Can I help?"

Ryan looks up as he pulls open the cutlery drawer, shrugging as he does so. He takes out place mats as well, four of them, before handing them to Seth. "Sure. Just--"

Seth nods, taking the cutlery, setting the table quickly and efficiently.

"Thanks." Ryan frowns, looking down at the way Seth stands still by the corner of the table, not even the ghost of a smile on his face, lines of concern on his forehead.

"Pfff. There. I didn't want it to overcook."

She wipes her hands on a dishtowel with a Christmas tree on it. Ryan remembers that one. She bought them last November, along with a few new garlands and they were supposed to pack them up and place them back in the attic, like they did with the stockings and everything else. But it got left behind, and Mrs. Landingham kept saying she was gonna pack them later this week, next week, and now six months have passed and she's still using them.

"It's a pleasure meeting you," she says, extending her hand, smile on her lips. Her white hair is pulled back in a low bun, held back with a convex pin he's never quite figured out how it works. She's wearing a long sleeved shirt under a dark blue thick wool vest she knitted at the beginning of the year. "I'm Evelyn Landingham."

Seth nods, taking her hand in his, shaking it slightly before letting it go. "It's a pleasure meeting you, ma'am. I'm Seth Cohen." He shifts his weight from one foot to the other. "I really... you didn't have to do this. I could have stayed at the inn Ryan mentioned."

She waves it off. "Nonsense. We have plenty of room here, don't we Ryan?"

Ryan only glances at Seth, reaching for the plates while Mrs. Landingham coos over Seth. He places them on the table, on top of the mats, before focusing on the way Mrs. Landingham has led Seth to the seat in the corner, next to Ryan's usual place, across from her. He smiles. 

"I'm gonna take a shower. Be back in fifteen, okay?"

Mrs. Landingham waves him off, and Seth looks up, his eyes a little frantic, and Ryan can't help but grin.

He turns around and rushes to the living room, picking up all three of Seth's bags, leaving behind the one he had been clutching, back in the sedan. He makes his way up the stairs, taking them two at a time, and then down the hall. He assumes Seth will take the room that Mrs. Landingham's always saying is the "guest room".

He pushes the door open and, yeah, it has been aired, and the peach sheets have been changed for soft beige as well as the thick covers. He places the bags on the chair in the corner, and after one final glance around the room, he makes his way to his own, right down the hall.

*****

"Oh, it's so nice to have you here, Seth. This house is too big for just two people. I've been telling Ryan for years now that he should settle down, find someone to marry and give me--"

"Mrs. Landingham!"

"What? You think I won't be loving any of your children like they were my grandchildren? That I won't be spoiling them rotten and watching you suffer through two am feedings? Hmpf. Please."

Ryan can feel his cheeks burning and his hold on the spoon tightens and his focus on the meal increases.

Mrs. Landingham chuckles, caressing Ryan's cheek with the back of her hand. Ryan blushes harder and deeper with a red color never known to man before. He gives Seth a sideways look, and can see the smile on Seth's lips; Ryan smiles.

*****

"Oh, I saw you boys when I went to town for the groceries--"

"Mrs. Landingham, I told you I could do them tomorrow after work. I even--"

"Pff. I know I'm getting old, Ryan, but the day I can't get my own groceries will be the day I stop cooking and cleaning and--"

"And I've also said I can do those. I can help around--"

"Oh, sweetie, you do more than enough. Keeping this old lady company--"

"I thought you said you weren't old, Mrs. Landingham," Seth says, eyes almost glued to his plate.

Evelyn Landingham narrows her eyes at Seth. "Don't you think you're too old to be bent over my knee and be given a whooping, young man."

Seth chuckles, but glances down. "Of course, Mrs. Landingham."

"Anyway, I seen you boys when I went to town for the groceries. I saw you Seth, right away, sitting there. I knew you weren't from around here, the moment I laid eyes on you, and then Wilson -- he owns one of the two shops here -- told me that you was the kid that got stranded by the 54--"

Seth lets out a put upon sigh, a grimace on his face. "I have a feeling people aren't going to let me forget that."

Ryan grins. "Oh, they aren't."

"-- and then I saw Ryan, well, not all of Ryan, just his feet, and I just knew you had to come over. You're too skinny--"

"Mrs. Landingham, I really don't think--"

"Nothing but skin and bones. Skin and bones, I tell you, and Oklahoma has a bit of a chill at night so you really should--"

"I think he's fine, Mrs. Landingham."

The old woman turns to regard Ryan, gives him a small smile. "I'm sure you do, Ryan."

*****

_He called everyone, once again, and got the same response he did the first time. None of them could help him, not that he was surprised. He told himself he wasn't._

_He thought about what to do, sitting down in the empty living room, back against a wall, head tilted back. He took the money out of his pocket and counted, five dollar bill and two singles. Nothing more, nothing less. He spent nine last night, on two slices of pizza and a coke, and that was stupid of him, but back then he hadn't thought he wouldn't have a place to stay tonight as well._

_He swallowed, shook his head. Nothing to stay here for._

_He picked up his bike and got out of the yard, out of the neighborhood, out of Chino. As far as he knew, they owed three months back rent. He didn't want to be here in case they came to collect._

_It was Sunday, and no matter what he thought, no matter what he wanted, there was no place to go, and no money to go there with. He could go back to that bar, but the owner there, a guy named Rafael, had been giving him the evil eye last night, and he didn't think that'd be smart of him. Then again, the other two bars weren't for playing, not for money, never have been. He swore under his breath and inhaled deeply._

_He'd find something. He always did. In the meantime, well, in the meantime, he might be able to make some money up in El Cuervo's, that bar down in Anaheim. He'd heard more than once that there was always game there. He could try, at least. It was about three hours on his bike, but right now, all he had was time._

_The seven bucks could see him through lunch, and then try his luck in El Cuervo's, maybe buy dinner, and crash in the park again. Another night wouldn't kill him._

_Tomorrow, he could try the construction sites, see if any in the vicinity were hiring._

*****

Mrs. Landingham spends a good part of dinner trying to ask Seth more questions about himself, and talking a little bit about the town, updating Seth on the latest gossip, as if he has lived here the past four years. Then again, she used to do the same thing with Ryan when he'd just arrived.

She makes sure to serve Seth seconds, and Seth looks at Ryan with such pleading written plainly in dark brown, that Ryan sighs and serves himself seconds as well, if only to join Seth in his suffering. Not that Mrs. Landingham's fried chicken and biscuits is a hardship.

After dinner is done and Seth is groaning under his breath, almost in pain from having eaten so much, Mrs. Landingham stands up and starts picking up the dishes. Ryan stands up as well. "I can--"

Mrs. Landingham waves him off. "I can do it, Ryan, don't worry." She places all three plates, one on top of another, and takes them to the sink. "Why don't you show Seth here the backyard? It's such a lovely night."

Ryan glances at Mrs. Landingham, at the way she picks up the glasses and then takes them to the sink as well, how she opens the tap and starts washing them. He'd do everything there was to do in this house, if only Mrs. Landingham would let him.

He turns to look at Seth, who shrugs. Seth had fallen shy somewhere in the middle of dinner, barely nodding and ahhing and ohhing when necessary.

They make their way out the backdoor in companionable silence, the backyard nothing but endless grass and space. Ryan walks out slowly, through the ankle high grass he really needs to mow it this weekend, to where the fence starts, dividing the farm from the house.

"This used to be a farm," Ryan says almost as an afterthought, almost as if speaking with himself. He sighs, leaning against the fence, folding his arms as he does so. The wind has picked up as the day has surrendered to night, pleasantly cool and a little chilly. He's gotten used to the low temperatures over the years, and yet, even now, this kind of cold can numb the tip of his nose in mere minutes. He looks up, at the dark sky, to the contour of the half waning moon. "Years ago, as far as I know. Before Mrs. Landingham and her husband bought it."

Seth nods, doesn't say anything. Ryan takes in a deep breath, closes his eyes for a second. 

He thinks he remembers the way spring used to feel back in California, the sun high all day long, the cool breeze against his cheeks as the sun begun its descent. He thinks he remembers the way Theresa's eyes used to close under his touch, the sound of her laughter, the way he used to feel about her. And God, it has been years since he last thought about her, not quite so long since he last thought about them all. Trey and Dawn and Frank. The family he lost years before he left.

He wonders if he misses them, wonders if he would know what it felt like, even if he were feeling it. He wonders... He wonders a million and one things, on nights like these, when it's quiet and his breath is halted and his mind is letting go and holding on at the same time, when he can see tiny spiderwebs where the horizontal and vertical pieces of wood of the fence meet, the faint pale shimmer of the moon painting them silver.

Ryan thinks he should talk more to Seth, try to... he doesn't know. But it feels awkward, this silence between them. Almost uncomfortable. He glances to the side, and Seth's looking out to where the night meets the grass and ground, where the property ends or maybe it doesn't, eyes focused on it as if it were the answer to all the questions, as if Seth was lost and has only now been found. It makes Ryan's chest feel weird, thick and yet not, loose and not really. 

He sighs once again, looks forward himself, out into the night sky, freckled with stars that shine brightly and may have died already, but the light can still be seen, months and years after they have long been gone. His nose starts going numb, and in a minute his fingers will, and he should have brought out a jacket, or at least a sweater. He's always forgetting, maybe thinking this time around he'll learn how to deal with the cold.

He can hear Seth's teeth clattering against one another, and notices that the boy is shivering in his two t-shirts that are no match against the Oklahoma spring night chill.

"Come on," he says after a moment, nudging Seth's forearm, on the side. Seth almost jumps in surprise, as if he had forgotten Ryan was standing right there next to him. Ryan narrows his eyes but doesn't question. "It's only gonna get colder."

Seth nods, absentmindedly, and as they make their way back to the house almost an hour after they first left, Ryan can see Seth looking over his shoulder, out into the night, into the endless expanse of the farm and the ground and the quiet.

*****

Ryan lies still on the bed, breathes in and out, blinks, and realizes that he's more awake than he's asleep. He takes in another deep breath and tries to hear what it is that woke him up, either sound or movement. He's always been a light sleeper, or maybe he wasn't, and he learned to be, he's not sure.

He remembers when he started living here, back when he was sure he'd move out soon enough, he'd leave town within a month, two, after the job was done and there was no more here. He used to wake up twice a night, whenever Mrs. Landingham would wake up and go to the bathroom, or just go to the first floor, to check on things. Three years later, Mrs. Landingham waking up doesn't wake him anymore, unless she was to call for him.

He yawns, and then he hears it, a shift on a bed that didn't used to make a sound, and no wonder he's wide awake. He feels the pressure on his bladder, figures he might as well go to the bathroom, knows he won't be able to go back to sleep otherwise. He sits up as quietly as possible, swings his feet to the floor.

The night is quiet, the house even more so. He stands up, and for a second the wood floor feels cold against his feet, but the feeling is quickly gone, and then he's walking out of his bedroom and down the hall. Seth's door is ajar, and he walks by it without stopping. After leaving the bathroom, he pauses by Mrs. Landingham's door for a second, opens it slightly. She's lying on the bed, on her side, covers up to her shoulder. He can see her chest rising and falling, and he breathes out in relief, and he makes his way down the hallway once again.

He pauses by the second door for a moment, and from this angle he can see Seth sitting up on the bed, laptop on his propped up legs, eyes focused on the screen so intensely he doesn't notice Ryan watching him. It's a little over three in the morning, and while the room is in darkness, his eyes have adjusted to the shades of gray and black and white. He can see the outline of Seth's face, the way Seth's hands hover over the keyboard for a second before moving rapidly, firing strokes as if they were words and yet not, and Ryan wonders what it is Seth has to type at this late an hour, so in the early morning, what thoughts rush through his head that they won't let him sleep.

Ryan smiles, tilting his head against the threshold of the door, and he doesn't dare close it, for fear Seth might hear, the spell broken. Instead, he turns around makes his way to the room next door, crawls into the coldness of the covers, shivering for a second before he burrows his face into the pillow he recognizes as home. He closes his eyes, and can still hear the firing of keys, the shifting of Seth in the bed. In the night, he thinks he can hear the sound silence makes.

He shifts, and takes in a deep breath. Seth's hands pause for a moment, as he gathers his thoughts, then continues typing in quick succession, before pausing again. Ryan falls asleep in between one keystroke and the next.

*****

_Two weeks later, he found a small job putting up drywall down in Anaheim, in Orange County. He'd sold his bike after the first week because he needed the money. He had been doing the pool scene, and had a couple of good hands at poker, but so far it'd been nothing but stale donuts and market sandwiches and nights at the park. The job lasted three weeks and paid two hundred bucks per week._

_The Friday of that last week of work, September 12th, was when he was to check out of the small motel room he had rented. He considered maybe paying for another week, which would cost him hundred and twenty, but he didn't know how long it'd be before the next job, and he had to make his last paycheck last._

_He had taken his backpack to work that day, because check out was at noon, and he didn't want to go back to find his stuff out on the street. He picked it up, shook the foreman's hand and thanked him, told him that if he knew of anything, to keep him in mind, he'd probably be returning to ask if anything had come up. The man nodded, smiled. Ryan nodded back._

_It was late, the sun was starting to hide, the clouds darkening in the sky. Ryan made his way down toward Villa Park, a couple of blocks from the motel. He found the right bar around ten, got inside and considered buying himself a beer, but thought better of it. He asked for a glass of water, the bartender eyeing him, a snort on his lips. The man knew, of course, that Ryan was only there to see if he could find someone to play against, find a couple of bucks to win._

_He did. Two solid games; thirty bucks worth. Not much, but enough. He never risked going for the ones that would bet on the hundreds, because people like that really didn't like to lose._

_He made his way down Taft Avenue; the area was quiet and no one would be bothered by just another person crashing on the streets, no one would call the police._

_He found a dead end alley by Lemon Street._

_He turned around, and eyed the small space in between two brick apartment buildings, with a few windows that looked out into it. There was a dumpster almost by the end of the alley, and Ryan made his way toward it, the space behind it more than enough, and the dumpster would hide him from view, just in case._

_It was after midnight, and the only people roaming around were either turning tricks or johns. He sat down on the pavement, back against one wall, shoulder leaning against the green metal wall of the dumpster. He placed his backpack on his lap, hugged it closed to his chest so he'd wake up if someone tried to steal it, and tilted his head back. He closed his eyes and heard the street around him, the cars and the people coming and going, and fell asleep._

_Four days later he still couldn't find anything, and he'd started to get anxious, worried. He'd thought about calling Theresa, maybe asking her if she'd heard anything about his mom. He didn't, told himself he didn't have the money to spend, even if it was a few quarters._

_One of the foremen from the sites he'd visited told him that there just weren't any jobs here, but he'd heard about a construction site opening up down in Santa Ana. Ryan figured he might as well try it._

_He spent seven dollars on a bus down to Santa Ana, because walking was not on the table. He got out of the bus, backpack over one shoulder, only a hundred and thirty bucks in his pocket and figured he might as well start looking for something to do, anything._

_He stayed there for two months, until he ran out of places that would hire him, ones that wouldn't ask about his age, address and phone number, or parents' permission._

_He thought he might as well keep moving, and went down to Irvine next. He stayed there for three more months until nothing else was left to find._

_He heard about a few things down in Newport, went there. He found a job doing renovations in palace-like houses. He got to work almost fifteen hours every day and it paid pretty decently._

_He spent his first Christmas away from the few people he was able to call family in a small motel room. There was a phone on the nightstand, and he thought about calling someone. He could probably find Trey, still up in The State of California correctional Facility in Chino. He could maybe even be put through to him._

_He thought about his mother for a second, but she was gone, and he had no way to find her. He told himself it didn't matter._

_He ate the hamburger and coke he'd treated himself to for the holidays and turned in early._

_He worked at that site until mid March._

_The foreman was nice and said that it wasn't his call, not really. The supervisor of the job, this blond haired woman he had seen around the place from time to time, had been worried about workers being paid under the table, how she didn't want that here. She wanted them all on the payroll, and Ryan just didn't cut it. The man had never asked Ryan about his age, and Ryan had never said a word. Ryan understood, finished the day, got his pay for the three days of that week and left._

_It took him another two weeks to realize that there was nothing else left for him here. He hadn't made his court appearance, which he barely remembered about and truth be told didn't even care. He wasn't even giving his real name to the few places he had worked at. He was no one, he was nothing._

_It was June of 2004 by the time he bit his lip and decided to get the fuck out of California, for good. He hustled at pool as much as he could before taking a bus down to Phoenix. Somewhere in the back of his mind he thought about Austin and Matthew and how he had told Ryan to look him up if he was ever around. He could do that. It might take him a while to get all the way up to Austin, but he could do that._

_He could._

*****

Mrs. Landingham makes too much breakfast the following morning. She insists that Seth have seconds, of almost everything, which includes pancakes and eggs and bacon. Seth lets her, and eats all she asks him to, as if it has been too long since someone did that for him, spoil him to the breaking point. Ryan can't help but tilt his head to the side and wonder, and he thinks he's done nothing but wonder about Seth, how he has the feeling Seth wants to open his mouth and talk and let words fill the silences, and yet doesn't, not really, not much. Or maybe he's wrong, or over reaching or whatever. Who knows, really.

He tells Seth he needs to go to work, they open at nine. Seth nods enthusiastically, and asks him if he can join him. Just like yesterday, Seth doesn't say, and neither does Ryan. But Seth bites his lower lip, almost as if expecting to be rejected, and has an apology ready on his lips.

Ryan shrugs. "Sure," he says, can feel the corners of his lips curling in a ghost of a smile, in half a smile. "I'm sure Bobby won't mind."

And the way Seth's eyes open in surprise, unexpected and grateful, and then relax, schooling his expression to one of nothing but nonchalant, not quite pulling it off. That tells Ryan more about Seth than the kid could have said in a thousand words.

They ride in the tow truck, Seth filling the silence with words that say very little. He talks about his classes at Brown, his teachers and what they pretend to teach, how they have said very nasty things about the writers Seth thought hung the stars and lit them, how his crushes of little boy have been broken into a million pieces.

"The moment Professor Sandburg started speaking about George Elliot, I left the class. Really. I can take many things, but I can't take anyone speaking ill of my George. Really. It breaks me."

Ryan chuckles, the sound low in his throat. "I've never really read anything of his."

Seth's appalled gasp makes Ryan laugh out loud, long and carefree, and then Seth's narrowing his eyes and glaring, and for Ryan it feels like Seth has touched his shoulder and done nothing else. "You know it's a woman!"

Ryan laughs even as he nods, and then he's shaking his head in laughter that has no meaning, and keeps on laughing.

"How could you-- I don't even understand how-- If my teachers would hear you-- I'd hurt you if I knew it would make even a dent in you, and you weren't going to kick my ass."

Ryan's laughter tempers down into chuckles, and then into nothing but a snort. "Yeah, I know it's a woman. I'm a hick, not an idiot."

Seth glares again and Ryan chuckles, and then Seth's chuckling as well, and the sound is nice and warm and right.

*****

"My mom works in my grandpa's company. It has something to do with construction. Hmm. Construction and Civil Engineers and Architects and God knows what else. I never really paid attention to it. She tried to explain it once, and I think I fell asleep. The details are kinda blurry on that one."

Silence meets Seth's latest monologue as Ryan works under Claire's Volkswagen, which Bobby keeps saying she should replace, that thing is almost as old as Bobby himself.

"Hmm. Yeah. My dad, he works for this big law firm. He used to work for the DA's office, but he quit that years ago. Never really knew why. I don't know; I thought he really liked it there."

"Oh."

"Yeah. I have a sister too."

"That's nice."

"Yeah. She's almost two. Her name is Sophie. I don't... I don't really talk much with her."

*****

"I'm graduating next year. I can't wait. I really... I really can't wait."

*****

"Getting into Brown was like a dream come true, really. When I went to the... God, I can't remember her name. There was this lady back in Harbor -- that's my high school. God, I hated it there. It was... nevermind. Their mascot was a pirate. I mean, how stupid is that? Anyway. So, when I went to the Guidance Counselor's office-- Right. Mrs. Fisher's office! I told her, I want a school on the east coast. Far, far away from here. With a good English program. I really didn't care which one. Turns out, Brown was for me. The day I got my letter from Brown, I was ready to burn the stupid Harbor jersey we had to wear for Phys. Ed. And I would have, if I hadn't known my mom would have skinned me alive if I set anything on fire in the house. God, that day was my rebirth."

Ryan can feel his breath quickening, and he takes in a shallow breath and then another. It's not even pain what he feels, because the feeling of college is long gone, but he thinks the memory remains. Ryan never thought having dreams was smart, anyway, but knowing they would never come true was. "I think you've said that before."

"That it was my rebirth?"

"No, that you were really happy to get into Brown." He can feel the smile on his lips, and he's surprised how even the memory seems to be fleeting. "You really wanted to get away from home, huh?"

"God, dude. You have no idea."

*****

"There was this sweatshirts thingy? Dude, don't even get me started."

*****

"I ended up getting a single room at school. I don't do well with crowds, or people, or roommates for that matter. It was for the best."

"Yours or your roommate's?"

"Hmm. Both, I think."

*****

"Her name's Sophie. She's... um. Well, really, if you saw us together, you wouldn't know we were related, let alone share parents. I mean, dude, you should see her. Blond hair and blue eyes and mom's daughter through and through. Actually, she looks more like you than she does me."

Ryan pauses, snorts under his breath. "That's not funny."

"No, it's not funny, but it's true. She has your eyes. Well, a shade lighter. Maybe when she gets older, they'll darken a bit, and then she'll have your eyes for sure."

He closes his eyes, can't help but smile. "I really don't think your parents would appreciate you saying their daughter takes after a complete stranger."

"First of all, you're not a stranger. And second of all, they'd probably love you better than me. And I mean that. You really look a lot like mom. People say I take after dad, but he has blue eyes and mine are brown and I think I take after a close friend or something."

Ryan swallows, can feel his throat tighten. "Seth. You shouldn't say that."

"I'm just saying--"

"Don't."

"Okay, okay. But Sophie still looks a lot like you."

*****

"Do you think, I mean. Hmm. Tonight, when we go back to dinner and all that. Um, do you think there might be somewhere I could hook up my PS3? I mean, it's not like I can't go a day without playing it, you know? I'm not a nerd."

"Of course not."

"Hey. You made a joke. That's good. That was almost funny. I just thought, maybe we could play. I'm sure you'll like it. You're, what, my age, right. Dude. I never asked you. How old are you?"

"Twenty-one."

"Cool. I turn twenty two in January."

"March."

"So I'm older than you. Even better."

"Seth--"

"So, like, I'm sure you'll like it. I only brought a couple of games, but still. I had to bring my PS3. I mean, I was sure I was gonna be bored to tears. I haven't been, which is a pleasant surprise, but I'd still like to play a game with you. I mean. If you'd like."

Ryan can feel the corners of his lips curling in a smile. "Yeah, I'd like that."

*****

"I'm just... not exactly what they had in mind when they had a child. I think. I'm pretty sure. Yeah, yeah, I'm pretty sure."

"I really don't think--"

"You don't know them, okay? We didn't... I never... They have Sophie now, anyway. They're happy. Mom's young enough they could have another one. They should."

"She's your sister, you know?"

"No, not really. We have nothing in common. She takes after my parents like that."

*****

"You've barely said a word."

"Yes, I have."

"Three, and that's a long sentence for you."

Ryan chuckles, letting his hand fall to his chest, his wrist hurting from the angle. He shrugs, even though Seth can't see it. "I like listening to you."

This time, it's Ryan's sentence that's met with silence.

"I think you might be the first."

*****

"I could teach you how to change a flat, you know?" Ryan says, head deep under the hood of the bug. He shrugs. "Maybe next time, you won't have to wait until it blows."

"Hmm. Really. I'm saying no for your very own good. I'm not good with power tools. Or hand tools. Or any kind of tools. Really. I don't want you getting hurt."

Ryan sighs, lifting his head. Seth has moved from the ground to the side of the car, leaning against it, head tilted back on the roof. Ryan cleans his hands with the rag stuffed in his pocket, leaning against the side of the Volkswagen. "Seth, I'm just going to teach you how to change a flat. It's not brain surgery."

"Actually, I think I might be better at brain surgery. Well, no, not really. I just shouldn't use anything sharp, or heavy. For everyone's sake."

"Seth--"

"Nope. Next time, I'd rather just call you."

"You live in Providence."

"So? I don't see how that has to do with anything."

Ryan snorts, shakes his head, and nudges Seth's side. Seth chuckles.

*****

Bobby arrives from Oklahoma City half an hour before Ryan closes the shop for the night.

"I could stay," Ryan says, eyeing the parts Bobby has brought, and thinks it won't take him more than two hours, three at the most, to have the car up and running. It'll be too late for Seth to try to make it to Oklahoma City, let alone Ponca, but Seth might want the option of leaving this small town.

"Nah, no need." Bobby shakes his head. "It'll take me a couple of hours. It won't hurt me to stay up late."

Seth takes a step forward, having stayed behind Ryan this whole time. "No, no, there's no need. It's not like I have anywhere else to go."

Ryan narrows his eyes, glancing at Seth from over his shoulder. "I thought you had a guy to interview."

He can see the way Seth ducks his head, shifts his weight from one foot to the other. He's starting to become used to that response.

"I mean, yeah, I do. But Steve knows it's not my fault, and the guy's gonna be home for the next week. So, no rush."

Bobby's gaze shifts from Seth to him, and then back to Seth, and then shrugs. "Okay then. I can work on it tomorrow morning. Have it done before lunch."

Seth swallows, but nods. "That's good. Thanks. That's more than enough."

Ryan thinks he should say something, but he isn't sure what, so he doesn't. Twenty minutes later, Ryan's driving home, Seth riding shotgun, talking about his deep hatred for polo players and guys who shave their chests.

*****

Mrs. Landingham prepares dinner as if for an army, and Seth has seconds and even considers having thirds. Ryan's full after a plate and a half. They have cherry pie for desert, freshly baked, so sweet and perfect that Seth actually moans outloud. He blushes to the tip of his ears afterwards, and Mrs. Landingham laughs even as she pats Seth's shoulder.

They hook up Seth's PS3 to the TV in the living room, the newest one, even though it's still eight years old. Ryan never understood why Mrs. Landingham wouldn't put the plasma TV in her bedroom. He never asked.

They sit on the floor to play. Ryan asks Seth why they can't sit on the couch, which isn't that far away, and the cables of the controls will probably reach. Seth just shakes his head and says that this game has been designed to play on the floor, with carpet, in a den, but the living room will do.

They start with Destiny Warriors XII, which Seth says it's pretty similar to all Destiny Warriors that have gone before. Seth wins, horribly easy, three games to nothing. Ryan says he just needs time to get the hang of it.

"We'll see," Seth says, like he has all the answers, and Ryan snorts.

Seth goes through the few titles he has brought with him.

"I have Grand Theft Auto. It's an oldie, but I really--"

Ryan's lips fall into a thin line and he can feel the touch of a memory brush against his mind, of a feeling that has long been gone, but still remains. He thinks he remembers, only he doesn't, he doesn't let himself remember.

"Okay, that's a no. Something else." Seth falls quiet for a second, fingers almost slack around the disk before placing it back in its case, and then pulls another one. "Resident Evil. Nothing better than killing zombies. Even you might be good at it."

Ryan rolls his eyes, slowly easing back into his movements, the way he tilts his head, watches Seth's fingers move and slide the game into the console.

"I'm gonna kick your ass," Ryan says with a smile, and Seth chuckles, and answers, "I wanna see you try."

*****

_He stayed in Phoenix until December, working construction in every place he could find. Money was enough that he could stay in a motel more nights than not, even though the motel was roach infested and the bed smelled like something that had crawled out of the drain. It didn't matter. It was a room with one door and a window, and that was more than Ryan had had since Irivine. He worked for the day's meal and the motel bill at the end of the week and that was it._

_If it hurt, he didn't think about it._

*****

This time, Ryan knows from the start that he's waking up. He rolls over in bed, and blinks, and recognizes the now distinctive sound of fingers against keystrokes, of a pause in the rapid fired words, of Seth still awake in bed. His bladder doesn't complain, and that's different, but still, he sits up. He rubs his fists against his eyes, and then he's standing up and making his way out of his bedroom. It doesn't take long for his eyes to adjust to the lack of light, to the shades of white and gray and black, and then he's blinking and turning to his side, pausing at Seth's partially opened door. 

He stands by the threshold, as he did last night. He tilts his head against the wooden frame, watches Seth click away thoughts and words and phrases Seth probably feels are working their way out of his throat and heart.

Seth pauses, and Ryan can imagine him stopping midword, the momentum almost lost. Seth looks up and Ryan can only gasp in the back of his throat in surprise. He hadn't planned on Seth knowing he was there.

"Hey," Seth says, surprise evident in his eyes, in the way his smile pulls at his lips, at his muscles. "I'm... did I wake you? God. I didn't think I was making that much noise." Seth shifts on his bed, not quite dropping the laptop. "I can--"

"No, no, there's no--" Ryan falls silent, because Seth didn't wake him, not really. Not tonight. He laughs humorlessly, and for a moment he wants to take a step forward, walk into Seth's bedroom and explain, but what will he say, because there is no reason for him to actually do this, watch Seth write. Instead, he asks, "What are you writing?" 

"Oh." Seth looks down at his laptop, and even in the dim light making its way through the pulled curtains, Ryan can see Seth blush. He wants to smile. "Uhh. Remember that book I was telling you about? The one I'm not really writing?"

Ryan's lips curl themselves into half a smile. "Yeah?"

"Well, I'm very bad at not writing it," Seth says with a chuckle, hand rubbing at the back of his head. "I... I wasn't really going to write it. Figured it'd be a pathetic attempt at actually making my life sound interesting when it very obviously isn't, but... I don't know. I started it one night when-- what are you doing there? You can come in, you know? And you shouldn't walk barefoot, I've been told it can give you a stomachache."

Ryan chuckles, but walks inside if only half hesitantly. He pauses by Seth's bed, but then Seth shifts to the other side, pats the space by his leg. Ryan sighs, and takes a seat, his hip almost touching Seth's knee.

"Where was I?" Seth glances quickly at the screen, then clicks a couple of keys before turning his attention to Ryan. "I learned the hard way to always, always save my work, no matter what. I will never forget the Russian Literature Incident of 2007."

Seth shifts on the bed, and Ryan tilts his head to the side, watches the play of light and shadow across Seth's face, the ghost of a smile on his lips, and relaxes. 

"So, yeah. Hmm. It started like this pathetic attempt, yeah, I already said that. But... it has turned into something half readable, you know?" Seth half shrugs, ducking his head. "I might even like my characters by the end of this."

Ryan wonders how one can write something and not like what he's writing, or the characters, or the very idea of it. He realizes he wonders a lot of things when he's with Seth. "I hope you get to finish it," his voice is low, nothing more than a whisper.

Seth laughs, a sad sound that has no humor in it, a sound Ryan wishes Seth wouldn't make. "Yeah, hmm. I don't think so. And even if I do, I might end up burning it afterwards." Seth gives Ryan a smirk that is steeped in darkness, with black and red tingeing the edges.

Ryan wants to say more, he wants to say something, but words were never really his thing. He doesn't think he ever really learned how to say them, how to find ones that would mean what he wants, what he wishes, what he hopes. He thinks Seth's thing is words, always has been, and he doesn't know why he thinks this.

"It's late," Ryan says softly, in the silence that has fallen in the night, between Seth and himself. "You should," he says, shrugs, doesn't know what else to say. He can't ask Seth to go to bed; he's not Seth's keeper, he barely knows the man. But it's late, and tomorrow Seth's leaving, and there are many things left unsaid between them. 

Seth nods, glances sadly at the laptop, almost remorsefully, and Ryan wants to ask, but doesn't know how. "Yeah, you're right. I should--"

And Seth shifts, and the laptop tilts to the right, to Ryan's side, and they both reach for it at the same time. His hand collides with Seth's, and for a second the crashing of fingers against fingers is painful, but then Seth turns his hand around, and Ryan shifts in place, and the laptop falls against Ryan's hip and he's holding Seth's hand.

The touch is quick and fleeting, almost unsettling in the second that skin comes in contact with skin, and it should be meaningless and forgettable, but it isn't, it's anything but that. It feels awkward in all good ways, and all the bad. There are words Ryan has never spoken, thinks they aren't for him to speak, but he takes a leap, dares to guess this is what home feels like, like coming home to a place he's never known before, to a place he didn't think existed. And then he's chuckling and letting go of Seth's hand, and Seth chuckles as well, the sound of one that is embarrassed about something so klutzy, and simple.

Ryan smiles and stands up, swats the side of Seth's leg. "It's late, and we have an early morning tomorrow."

Seth nods, but doesn't answer, closing his computer instead. Ryan reaches the threshold and glances over his shoulder, and Seth's placing the laptop on top of the nightstand, lying down on the bed. Seth's face is hidden in shadows, and Ryan sighs softly, turning around.

Ryan crawls back under the covers, closes his eyes. He dreams of words on a gray background.

*****

Mrs. Landingham makes conversation during breakfast, asks more questions of Seth, questions to which Ryan already knows the answers. In that time, while Seth blushes and ducks his head, chuckles in between words, in between answers, Ryan watches the play of light over Seth's cheekbone, the line of Seth's jaw, the corner of his eye.

Ryan tells himself he won't miss this boy, this guy, who has only stayed here for two nights, but doesn't know if he's lying to himself or not. Doesn't know why he would do that.

When Seth lifts up his face, a blush on his cheeks from something Mrs. Landingham has said, and finds Ryan's gaze, Seth smiles, and so does Ryan.

*****

By the time they arrive at the garage, at twenty to nine, Bobby's already working on the sedan. Ryan notices the way Seth glances at the car, before following him to Bill's truck standing almost out the back.

It takes Ryan almost an hour to realize that it's the clutch disk and lining that are shot to hell, and it'll take him this afternoon alone to find the parts. They should have it done by tomorrow before closing, but not before then. Bill's not gonna be happy about that.

Seth takes his seat on the floor, back propped up against the wall, as Ryan starts picking up tools.

*****

_The beginning of December in Phoenix meant no new construction until the New Year, no work. It meant Ryan had the two hundred and fifty to look forward from this week and the eighty he had in his backpack and that was it. That wouldn't see him through the end of the year, the second week of January. He had to get out of here._

_He did._

_He got a bus ticket to El Paso because he didn't have enough to get all the way up to Austin._

*****

"Hey, kid. It's done."

Ryan hears Bobby's words and his breath catches in his throat, and then he's closing his eyes, taking in a deep breath that sounds weird going through his throat, before pushing himself off from under the car. He swings his legs around so his feet are planted firmly on the concrete of the garage floor, and glances at Seth, sitting still on the ground. He gives Seth a small smile, but it pulls at his muscles, makes them hurt and cramp, so he lets it go.

Seth nods, stands up slowly, wipes away the dust from the back of his jeans then nods again. Ryan watches the movement from the corner of his eyes, his head ducked, something tight in his chest once again.

"Yeah. Hmm." Seth's voice, talking with Bobby. Ryan bites on his lower lip, glances down at the engine of the truck. "Thanks. Let me--"

Ryan stands up, turns his back to Seth, and starts working on the engine, hearing her whining instead of purring. It might be something else besides the clutch. His left hand grips the edge of the chassis tightly, right one covered in grease, deep inside the engine. He's trying very heard to concentrate on the truck instead of Seth, when he feels Seth's standing by his shoulder, a step behind. He closes his eyes briefly before turning around, cleaning his hands as best he can with the rag puckered in the back pocket of his old stain covered jeans.

He leans against the side of the car, looks at Seth for a moment. He can feel himself calm and collected. Being calm and collected is more than just second nature for him.

"Thanks." Seth ducks his head, before standing up straight, looking right at Ryan. Ryan swallows. "It's been really... it's been really great."

Ryan wonders if it really has been, if this boy from California wouldn't have rather stayed in a nice hotel with room service and new sheets. If he'd rather done anything but sit on the cold hard ground and talk all day long at feet sticking from under a car. He doesn't know.

They stand there for a second, not saying anything, and then Seth chuckles, a nervous sound in the back of his throat. Ryan nods and looks down, looking up at Seth through his longish hair, through his eyelashes.

"It's been a pleasure meeting you," Ryan says, because he has to say something, the silence is too freaking oppressing. He nods again. "It was."

"Good." Seth says, and the word sounds hollow and empty, and they stand there for another moment. "I, um." He reaches for something inside his pocket, a piece of paper, and hands it to Ryan. "My email. I thought maybe, I don't know, we could keep in touch?"

Ryan looks down at the piece of paper, _Seth.cohen@brown.edu_ scribbled down in messy handwriting that fits Seth better than Ryan would have thought possible, and nods. He doesn't have an email account. He's never been one for computers, never needed one. He knows enough to find a page or two, if he really wants to read any old news, only those times are few and far between. No, he doesn't have email, never found need for it. Until now.

"I don't really do email," Ryan says, reluctantly, because he doesn't want Seth to send him something and then wait for an answer that won't come for days, maybe even weeks.

Seth nods, a small smile on his lips, like he knows what Ryan's thinking, like he knows Ryan has only used the internet about five times in the last year. "Yeah, I thought so. That's my cell phone underneath." When Ryan looks up, Seth has a grin almost splitting his lips. "There really are cell towers around the campus."

Ryan chuckles at that, pockets the paper in his jeans. "You know the number." It's a statement, not a question, but Seth nods anyway. One of the many questions Seth had asked in the last two days, one of the few Ryan had actually answered. "Back at the house."

"Yeah, and I know what time you're done with dinner, so expect a call tonight."

Ryan grins, and nods, and ducks his head. "Sure."

They nod at each other, and it feels weird and wrong, and it's nothing but confusion all around. Ryan wants to laugh but doesn't; he wants to reach forward but doesn't.

After another moment, another breath, Seth takes a step back, turns around. Ryan can see that the bags aren't in the bed of the tow truck anymore. Probably in the trunk of Seth's sedan; almost certainly.

"You know your way back, right?" Ryan had pointed it out last night, on a map, spread out on the kitchen table. He had highlighted it with a red marker, made some notes on the edges, so Seth wouldn't get lost all over again, find himself stranded in the middle of an open road, meet another mechanic, and God, that sounded so pathetic right there.

"Yeah. Totally. Not getting lost this time around. I don't think Steve will forgive me." 

Ryan walks Seth to the car, already parked outside, under the afternoon sun of Oklahoma in the spring. Seth opens the passenger door, and Ryan stands there for a second, in front of him, like they did only moments ago by Bill's truck.

Seth hesitates, seems to consider something, before throwing his arms around Ryan, pulling him into a hug. Ryan's arms stay down in surprise, hands barely lifting a couple of inches, before they slap spasmodically at Seth's back, in a way that can't really be considered half a hug.

After a moment, Seth holds him at arm's length, hands digging into Ryan's shoulders almost painfully, before letting him go, hands falling to his side, hesitant, like the first time they met. Seth sighs and gets into the car, and rolls the window down for Ryan, who leans forward, hands holding onto the edge where the door meets the window. 

"Drive safe," Ryan says, because he doesn't know what else to say, how to say goodbye to this person sitting before him.

Seth blinks, slowly. Ryan notices that Seth has very long eyelashes. "You too. Back home. Tonight, huh?"

Ryan chuckles, but understands, and so does Seth. Ryan takes a step back, and then another, until he's standing at the edge of the sidewalk, where it meets the property. He folds his arms over his chest, and the sun hits him right on the face. He lifts his hand to shield his eyes from the sun. He blinks and Seth glances back at him, gives him a small smile, and he thinks he's returning it, his cheeks hurting, his jaw clenched.

Seth pulls out of the driveway slowly, drives down the main street and then takes a right. Ryan loses his sight of him within seconds, but he stands there for another moment, another breath, and then the sun doesn't hit his face anymore; it has been covered by clouds.

He takes a step back and turns around and walks back into the garage. When he slides down under the car once again, silence greets him.

*****

By the time the shop closes for the day, he's still working on the truck and has cursed Bill ten days from Monday with every single word he knows, and a couple in Spanish for good measure.

He tells Bobby he'd like to work on it another hour, maybe, not lose his momentum. Bobby rolls his eyes, tells him that if Bill wants the truck then he can fucking wait. That car is nothing but a piece of junk anyway, why the man doesn't put out the money for something decent, he'll never know. Ryan rolls his eyes with his back turned to Bobby, tells him he doesn't mind.

"Well, I mind, kid." Bobby shakes his head, Ryan watches it when he looks over his shoulder. "Nope. Go home, have supper. Come back tomorrow and then finish it off. It's not like the truck hasn't waited long enough for this."

So he does, goes home and helps Mrs. Landingham with dinner, even though that just means setting the table and then taking a shower. They eat in companionable silence, broken only by small mentions of the day, of some gossip or other that Mrs. Landingham overheard in town, or Bobby told Ryan. Mrs. Landingham only mentions Seth once, in passing, saying, "I hope that boy got to Ponca alright. He has the sense of direction of a toad."

Ryan chuckles, but nods, and falls silent again. For some reason, he can't help but wonder, and worry just a little bit in the back of his mind, like a chill in his body that doesn't go away.

He does the dishes this time, only because it's Wednesday and they are showing reruns of Bonanza and Mrs. Landingham never misses Bonanza. He dries them, and places them on the drain board before drying his hand on the dishtowel.

He glances over his shoulder towards the living room, at Mrs. Landingham watching Pa Cartwright saying something to Joe, he thinks his name is, at The Ponderosa, in her plasma screen. He glances back out the kitchen window, to the thin lines of fence he can actually see, to the dark night sky and the stars scattered above.

He wants to go out there, take a beer out and gaze up into the stars, but doesn't. He sighs and places the dishtowel back on the rack, and then tells Mrs. Landingham that he's going upstairs.

He tidies up the bed, takes the laundry out from the hamper down to the garage, where the washer and dryer are. He goes back to his bedroom, runs his fingers through the spines of the few book he has actually managed to accumulated over the last four years, until one of them catches his attention. George Elliot's "Middlemarch". 

A smile crinkles the corner of his eyes, and he sighs and picks up the book. It's a tattered pocket version, the edges of the covers curled and folded, the spine with folds where Ryan had paused the longest. It has been years since he last read it, and he figures, well, now is as good a time as any.

He sits back on the bed, book on his lap, and opens it. _"Who that cares much to know the history of man, and how the mysterious mixture behaves under the varying experiments of Time, has not dwelt, at least briefly, on the life of Saint Theresa, has not smiled with some gentleness at the thought of the little girl walking forth one morning hand-in-hand with her still smaller brother, to go and seek martyrdom in the country of the Moors?"_

*****

It's another hour before he realizes that the book has caught his attention, really taken hold of it, hook line and sinker. He's gotten as far as chapter five when he glances at the clock, and it's almost nine and he has to put the book down by his side on the bed, stretch his arms as if reaching for the ceiling. The ringing of the phone surprises him.

He reaches for it on the nightstand, picks it up before it can ring a second time.

"Hello."

_"Hey."_

Ryan smiles, shifting on the bed, pulling the phone closer to his ear. "Hey." He can hear the surprise in his own voice, can feel it as a tightness in his chest. He hadn't really thought Seth would call. He's glad he's been proven wrong.

_"So, what's new?"_

Everything stills for a second, sounds loud in his ears. The harsh wind hitting the window panes, the crickets outside, the rustling of the grass. And then there's nothing, only the beating of his heart loud in his temples, the hand he has around the phone, the not quite silence on the other end.

He remembers, Seth sitting on the floor of the garage, back against a wall, legs stretched out before pulling one knee to his chest, head tilted to the side. He remembers the look on Seth's face and the ghost of a smile on his lips.

It's that and this and everything, the words and the setting and the way Seth says them. Ryan smiles, because he can't stop himself, and then he's laughing, head thrown back. The sound is free and easy as it flows from his chest, as it falls from his lips and onto his face. Seth's quiet for a moment before he's laughing as well, and Ryan can only smile at that sound, recognizing it because he's heard it before, memorizing it in that very second. He wants to hear it, over and over again.


	3. Chapter 3

Seth calls a little after ten, almost every night, like clockwork. Ryan tends to already be up in his bedroom, either reading or just not really waiting. A couple of times Seth's caught Ryan fixing something on the first floor, or pushing things around in the attic. Once, Seth called a little early, and Ryan was still outside, leaning against the fence, looking out into the dark Oklahoma sky. It was Mrs. Landingham who picked up, told Seth wait for a second, she'll call Ryan, and how are you, sweetie?

Ryan picks up the phone on the small corner table that's actually in the middle of the hallway. He ends up sitting on the wooden floor, legs straight out, one ankle folded over the other, back against the wall, head tilted back until he is staring at the ceiling as Seth retells the story of his Professor Sandburg and how English is a worse subject just for having the man as a teacher. The sound of Seth's laughter makes him smile.

Only eight days after their first phone call, Seth starts asking deeper questions.

*****

"There's so much I don't know about you. It's like, I can fill a Post-It with what I do know."

"You know enough."

"No, actually, I don't. I know you're an Atwood, but that's just about it."

Seth's non question is met with silence, and then Seth's sighing on the other end of the phone, Ryan leaning his head back against the right wall in his bedroom, his eyes closed.

Seth starts telling him about his classes.

*****

Summer comes with a scorching sun that's the hottest in almost forty years, according to the folks that can remember, Mrs. Landingham amongst them. The air itself burns with heat as Ryan lies on the dolly, underneath a car for a simple tune up, someone just passing by. He wipes his forehead with the back of his hand and can feel sweat rolling down his back, in between shoulder blades, drenching his white t-shirt, making dark circles under his armpits and neck. Bobby bitches about the heat, about how it's the stupid pollution and fucking global warming and Ryan can't help but smile at the thought of Bobby being worried about global warming. Seth laughs his ass off when Ryan tells him.

Seth spends the summer busy with his job at that magazine that he's always asking Ryan to check out on the internet -- 

"It's just a freaking click away."

"I'm not saying I won't check it out."

"Dude. I've given you the links three times already and so far, each time I ask you about our latest issue, all you have to say is _huh_. You haven't checked it out and you know it, so don't you freaking lie to me."

Ryan chuckles at the indignation in Seth's voice. "I haven't lied!"

"Saying you're going to do something when you very obviously have no intention of ever doing it IS lying, you ass."

Ryan laughs, head thrown back, phone cradled between his ear and his shoulder.

\-- and Ryan keeps saying he'll do it and never really does. It's a matter of actually crossing the town's square to the one internet café (that's not really a café but this small coffee shop where the college kids like to hang in during summer, with their laptops and cell phones and people to reach out to) and use one of the three computers the place has and type in an address and read what it is Seth loves so much.

Ryan's pretty sure he doesn't do it only to hear that tone in Seth's voice each time Seth asks and Ryan says _huh._

*****

"My sister's birthday is today."

Ryan can feel his mouth closing slowly, not quite making a sound. He looks around his bedroom, even though he knows he doesn't have a calendar here. He tries to remember the date, but falls short. He knows it's Friday.

"June 26th."

Seth could have gone home. Taken the day off, caught an early plane and been home for the cutting of the cake. If he had wanted. If he had wanted...

"She turns two."

Ryan nods, doesn't know what to say. 'I'm glad' doesn't cut it, and he knows questions won't be well received.

Seth talks about an interview of yet another up and coming author that Molly, one of the English majors who works with him, did today. He doesn't mention Sophie again.

*****

_El Paso was a bust. Every place asked for ID or parents' signature. Ryan was three months shy of turning seventeen but that wasn't enough, it would never be enough._

_He stayed there as long as he could with as little as he had. By the second week of January he was hitchhiking his way across to Austin with nothing but his backpack and his lower lip sucked between his teeth._

*****

In the second week of July, Bobby gets a horrible case of the flu, and Laura calls early one Tuesday morning to tell Ryan to go ahead and open the shop, it's his for the day, and probably the rest of the week, the way Bobby's lying on the bed being miserable and bitching about having to stay home for the stupid flu. Ryan knows Bobby likes bitching for the sake of bitching alone, and has no idea how Laura, an amazing woman, can put up with him.

He has two trucks to take care of, and Barbara's car that's making a weird sound once again, and then two days in, the Kent's farm truck simply stops working and Ryan has to leave the shop to go out to the farm. That first day, he heads back home after ten and he has been paid double for the speed job because the tomatoes are ripening and ready to be picked, and he's missed Seth's call.

He devours his dinner, standing up against the sink after he has warmed it up in the microwave. Mrs. Landingham yells at him about eating properly and forces him to sit down and eat like a gal durn person. Afterwards, after he has finished a forty minute shower that finally allows him to shift his shoulder without feeling the pull of muscle and bone from a long ass day, he crawls into his bed, pulls the covers up to his shoulder and eyes the phone on the nightstand next to his bed.

He could call Seth. He could. He has Seth's cell phone number, knows it by heart, and Seth's always complaining about how he does all the calling, but the times he's offered to call Seth, Seth's always waved it off, saying not to worry, he'll call tomorrow. And it's not like they talk every night. They don't. Seth has a life over there, and there are times when he actually goes out. Not to a bar or with friends, because for all the talk Seth does about the people he works with, he's never really mentioned a friend, someone he hangs out with, calls when he isn't making calls to Oklahoma.

But they talk often enough. At least five times a week, almost six. Some days Seth stays up late at work, or goes to the theater or to the movies, but it's not often, and he always tells Ryan in advance, tells him he won't be calling tomorrow, there's a Museum exhibit he's been waiting for, or one of the few authors he loves who are actually alive is doing a presentation. Most of the times, Seth just sits down on the ground, phone in his hand, Thai take out on his lap and phone against his hear as he fires a hundred words all the way to Ryan's end of the line.

His eyes have closed before he notices it, and then they are opening, wide and awake, at the sound of the ringing phone.

He reaches for it, still half asleep, blinking and rubbing his eyes with his free hand. He has no idea what time it is, but somewhere in the back of his brain he knows it's late and he's worried about the phone waking up Mrs. Landingham.

"H'lo?"

There's a pause before Ryan can hear a sigh. "Hey. I thought..." Ryan can almost see him sitting in his small one bedroom apartment, with his back against the wall. "Just thought I'd call. You know? I know it's late--"

Ryan glances at the clock by the phone, and it's eleven twenty eight, and the night has long fallen dark, and he shouldn't be this happy to hear Seth's voice.

"-- but I really just wanted to talk to you, ya know?"

Ryan smiles, nods, sitting up in bed, back against the backboard. "I know."

*****

July ends and by mid August, Seth's sick of his job and swears to himself never ever to get one like this.

"I'm not made for this," he says in one of the many phone calls throughout the first two weeks of August. "I really aren't. I'm an English major! I should be locked up somewhere, writing a book. Or working for a publishing company. It was very stupid of me to think that working for a magazine would be a good idea."

Ryan shrugs, doesn't know what to say. He used to think about college with a dream-like quality to it, never anything even close to thinking it would become a reality. He stopped thinking about it as he stood with his bicycle by his side, leaning against a concrete wall.

He opens his mouth, thinks about saying a word, something. He can almost feel the whisper of architecture against his lips, on his tongue, but then the moment is gone and the word leaves a bitter taste in his throat. He swallows, looks away even though he had been looking at nothing at all, and closes his eyes for a fleeting moment.

Seth chuckles on the other end of the line, doesn't even hesitate in his complaints because silence is what Ryan does best, so he does it.

*****

Seth starts his senior year of college on August 17th, 2009. Ryan spends the day working under Terrence's Ford Explorer. He thinks of nothing at all.

*****

Ryan will have lived in Shadow's Willow four years in less than a week, on August 25th. It fell on a Thursday, back then. He remembers it in the weird way he remembers most of that day, in bits and pieces of fear and anger and frustration and curses at Dawn and fucking Trey for getting himself sent to jail. And even so, in the four years he has lived here, he has interacted with every single person in town, but never more than he strictly had to.

He came to live with Mrs. Landingham because the woman has something about her that will bludgeon you to death unless she gets what she wants, what she thinks is the best for you. He was only seventeen, after all, even though he had told everyone in town that he had turned eighteen the year before. She hadn't believed him. He doesn't think anyone had believed him.

And yet. And here is where it all gets interesting, Ryan thinks with a small smirk that doesn't become him, with self deprecation that's even less him. And yet, for someone who has lived in the same place almost four years, for someone who has a steady job and a place he can almost call home, he hasn't exactly grown roots. He knows; he knows like he knows how he feels when he looks out into the dark sky at the back of the house, he would leave this place if it ever came down to it. He could. He has nothing tying him to this place. Nothing at all. And isn't that a little sad.

It's Friday afternoon as Ryan thinks of that, of all the passing thoughts he tries so hard to bury out of sheer force of will. Seth has a paper due on Monday and he's spending the afternoon and probably early night at the library and he has told Ryan he wouldn't call, probably not until tomorrow morning, if he can catch him before going to the shop. Ryan goes to Eve's bar that night.

*****

_He looked up Matthew Morgan the minute he got out of the trailer truck that finally left him in Austin. There were three Matthew Morgans in the greater Austin area and none of them were the one Ryan remembered from the seven month affair with his mother. He had come all the way here for nothing._

_He took a shallow breath in through his mouth, right hand gripping the phone receiver, left hand around the edge of the phone booth, the side of it cutting into his palm. He had come here for nothing._

_He hung up the phone, hearing a metallic sound as it was placed on its perch. He took in another shallow breath, rubbed one hand across his eyes, feeling them prickle hot and itchy._

_This wasn't right. This wasn't fucking right at all. He should have thought this through. He should have tried to find Matthew beforehand. He should have made calls, and then he would have realized that he knew that man almost two years ago and he could have very well found something more interesting and moved on. He should have known. He should have._

_He rubbed his hand across his eyes once again, took in a deep breath and then picked up his backpack from where he had placed it by his feet._

_He looked around the phone booth, to the shops across the street, to the cars passing by. He swallowed and took a step forward._

*****

He sits by the bar, and even Eve glances at him from the corner of her eyes before turning around to really look at him, smiles at him warmly, nicely. He smiles back, lifting his beer in a small salute, but the feeling is lost inside, in the way the muscles on his cheeks move, the way it doesn't reach his chest or his eyes.

He swallows, taking a long drink of the beer. He's downed half of it in less than a minute. That's never good. He glances at her once again before looking down at the bottle.

Eve runs this bar because her dad ran this bar before her and she's an only child. He died three years ago, of a stroke. Ryan hadn't wanted to go to the funeral; he had only met the man a couple of times, because drinking hadn't been big on his list back then. She married Stuart a couple of years back, owner of a small pet store in town that does surprisingly well.

He finishes his beer.

He asks for another one and Eve hands it to him, no questions asked. She smiles at him, tells him how they don't really see him here in town unless he's at the shop. He nods in all the right places, shrugs when the statement ends in a question. He watches her sigh and then move down to where Barbara and Mark are having a quiet drink at the other end of the bar, talking with Claire.

Claire; best friends of Barbara since they were in high school. He has heard all about their childhood exploits, because apparently Claire was a firecracker in her youth, but has mellowed now that she has two kids, two little girls, ages six and four. Claire's husband died in Iraq three years ago, two months after Lila (the youngest) was born, and Claire decided to move back to her hometown, lives in her mother's house now. Lucy blushes whenever Claire takes her car or her mother's old pick-up truck for a check up. Lucy, the oldest, six and three quarters, gave him a daisy the last time they went up to the shop, not even two weeks ago. Claire thinks it's so funny that her daughter has a bit of a crush on the young mechanic, told it to Barbara who told it to him.

The second beer goes down quicker.

He's asking for a third before it's eleven at night.

He knows all these stories, from everyone's childhood, like he has lived here his whole life, like he has lived through it with these people of whom he knows names and backstories and secrets. He doesn't think he likes that.

The fourth one is hardly even felt.

His fingers itch for a cigarette for the first time in years. He thinks about the luxury it became at one point, how he'd have to actually stop to consider if buying a pack was worth foregoing bread or something resembling meat. And he remembers when he stopped smoking, March of 2005, back in Austin, when things started to get tight again. Up until then, he'd try to bum a cigarette from one of the guys at the site when he could. He hadn't known how much he'd missed the cigarettes, the taste of the nicotine down his throat, the light pressure in between his eyes, the smell of it on his fingertips, until that night in May, all those years ago. He swallows. He fucking hates Austin. 

The fifth one loses its taste.

He knows all these stories but feels detached from them, from the people that own the stories. He knows them but doesn't, he lives with them but doesn't. He... He...

_I think you need to leave, Ryan  
Where am I supposed to go, mom? Huh?_

Ryan snorts against the mouth of the bottle, tilts it back and finishes it in one gulp. He places it back against the bar, thinks about ordering another one. It's almost midnight. There's only Eve, and Carl and Jason having their nights out while their wives stayed in. It's almost funny, only it isn't. He thinks about doing something stronger, because six beers in and he's barely feeling them at all. Whiskey. He used to love whiskey, even if it was only the cheap kind, all the way back when. Back when getting it was almost a privilege. Back when Arturo and Trey would show off the bottles, like it was gold or something. He was fifteen. He'd done coke, too, decided it was too expensive to get into as a habit. He closes his eyes, takes in a deep breath.

For a second he lets himself wonder where Trey is, if he's alright. If he's still in jail. That lawyer of his, that morning back in juvie, had told him that they would be keeping Trey in for at least five years, Grand Theft and possession. The guy had smiled a stupid grin, like he was happy Trey was rotting in jail, stupid blue eyes and blond hair, and Ryan had wanted to punch him, split his lip, break his nose.

For a second he wonders about his mother, killing the thought before it's fully formed.

The sixth one tastes almost sweet on his tongue.

He doesn't remember where AJ hit him. He thinks the man split his lip, and Ryan touches it with the pads of his fingers, or maybe bruised the skin around his right eye. He remembers anger and pain and frustration. He remembers feeling lost for a second before feeling like he hated her, hated everything she was to him, hated that he had hoped she'd protect him.

If he drinks a seventh, he won't be fit to drive.

He pays Eve, watches her watch him with worry at the edges of her eyes, in the pull of her mouth.

I don't care, he wants to tell her. You can care all you want, but I don't care. I can't. I've stopped.

He walks back to the tow truck, shifts it to first and pulls out of the drive outside the small bar, down the street to the intersection and then to the right, the few miles from here to the house he's been living in for the past months that have almost become countless.

*****

He stops by the house, but doesn't go in. He knows Mrs. Landingham has gone to bed long ago. He told her he wouldn't be arriving early today, not for dinner, probably not even before she turned in. She didn't say anything about it, only thanked him for letting her know so she wouldn't worry.

He walks around to the back of the house, to the fence and leans forward, head pounding, hands holding the wooden slats tight, knuckles almost white. He takes in a deep breath, a harsh breath through his mouth, lets it out almost as if it pains him. With the next one, it doesn't, not as much, not as bad. 

He takes the pack out of his pocket, the one he had to drive three extra miles to be able to buy, to find a store that was open this late, and lights it with a flick of his thumb. He takes a long drag that makes his eyes fall close, something push in between his eyebrows. It's been too long since he last allowed himself this, allowed himself a lot of things.

He used to smoke four, five cigarettes a day. One in the middle of the morning, when he'd cut class with Theresa and Richard and Jorge. Another one right after lunch, a habit he picked up from Arturo, actually. Then one in the afternoon, as he took a swing of the beer or rum or something else stronger if they had the money for it. Another one later that night, sitting on the steps at the back of Theresa's house, her hand in his or on his thigh.

_I used to..._

It doesn't matter. He goes inside the house, makes his way quietly up to his bedroom. He lies down with nothing but his t-shirt and his shorts, pulls only the sheet over him, and closes his eyes. After a second, he opens them, stares up at the white ceiling, the small cracks he can see in the paint, the play of shadow and grey on the lines and edges and imagination.

He thinks about calling Seth.

I used to live in California, he'd say, even though Seth knew that part of the story. The only part Seth really knows. I used to live in Chino. I used to have a family, in a way. I used to. She kicked me out. Let her boyfriend beat the crap out of me. There was nowhere for me to go. I slept in the park that first night, didn't want to talk with Theresa or Richard or anybody, knew everyone would be talking about poor little Ryan, being kicked out of his own house. Spent the day down by Long Beach, just sitting there, played poker to pay for lunch. On Sunday, when I went back, they were long gone. I got a note.

His teeth grind against each other, making his jaw hurt; the corners of his eyes, his temple, ache along. He turns around harshly on the bed, closes his eyes, tries to forget.

It's so easy to be angry. It's always easier; easier than feeling lost.

*****

Seth calls the following day, and Ryan sits down on the ground, props up one leg and stretches the other, leans his head back and listens. He can feel the ghost of a headache in between his eyes, on his temples. He doesn't mention it, he doesn't say a word. He thinks about drinking water when he goes down to the kitchen. He thinks about it.

He thinks he wants to ask, am I your only friend? Is that why you keep calling me, someone you met for two days in the middle of nowhere, hundreds of miles from where you live? Are you that out of touch?

And he wonders to himself, and am I so pathetic that I let you? That I like it? 

He asks neither.


	4. Chapter 4

This year, the 25th of August is a Tuesday, and the day breaks with autumn revealing itself in green leaves turning brown, with the wind picking, chilly throughout the day, making it pleasantly cool to work under a car, the garage door wide open.

He doesn't go back to Eve's again, nothing unusual, because he really had never been one for hanging out in bars. If he catches Eve's eye as he's shopping for the groceries that week, for a change, he doesn't let it bother him. She doesn't say a word, anyway.

Seth bitches about his classes, and Ryan finds it surprisingly amusing and refreshing, and the questions he had felt on the tip of his tongue weeks before, are long gone, forgotten put away in the corners of his mind he's learned to pretend aren't there.

*****

"It wouldn't kill you to talk, you know?"

"I'm talking."

"Three word responses isn't talking."

"That was just two."

"Ha!"

*****

In small town like Shadow's Willow, gossip is more fodder than not. And Seth loves good gossip. So Ryan tells him the things he hears, the things he sees and the things he has no idea if they are true or not.

A week before Halloween, Ryan tells Seth the newest bit. About how Leonard had cheated on Mary, only married a little over a year, with his ex.

"Oh my God!" Seth says on the other end of the line, and Ryan chuckles, tilts his head to the side. "Dude, that's so Gilmore Girls!"

"What?"

"Hmm. Nothing. Keep going."

*****

September brings rain that plasters Ryan's hair to his forehead, and he really needs to head over to Susan's, the only hair dresser in town. There used to be a barber, but he died about five years ago, and his son didn't want to take over his father's business, and so the store has been closed for that long.

He rushes out of the garage to the grocery store to get cooking oil and milk and orange juice. When he steps outside, he looks up into the dark sky, at the thick and ominous clouds. It feels like a whisper and like forgiveness, the way the rain falls onto his cheeks and down his neck to the inside of his t-shirt. He wonders if the sky knows, if the very world knows, that he hated this natural event as much as he used to hate his life itself.

He lets the rain wash down on him until his teeth start clattering and then for a minute longer. When his fingers are going numb and his lips are starting to ache, he shudders and rushes back to the shop, to place the things he has bought on the passenger side of the tow truck and head home.

*****

Every year, for Halloween, Eve throws a costume party in the bar. Every year, everyone in town goes. Ryan has found very good reasons to decline, three years in a row. On Friday the 30th, he's still trying to come up with one that won't sound pathetic and stupid. Seth thinks otherwise.

"Dude, I really think you should go."

Ryan sighs, tilts his head back against the wall. He has no idea why he told Seth about the party, or the fact that he's not going, and he has even less of an idea why he likes talking to Seth while sitting on the wooden floor. "I really don't--"

"I mean, knowing you, you'll probably go as yourself, or something as lame as that--"

Ryan snorts. "Not that you're lame _at all_."

Seth pauses at that, and Ryan closes his eyes shut and hits his head against the wall. That was uncalled for. He opens his mouth to apologize when Seth beats him to it, "Well, it does take one to know one."

He smiles, easy and with confidence, and sighs softly through barely parted lips. The silence that follows is comfortable between them.

"I still think you should go."

Ryan chuckles, even as Seth starts throwing around ideas for costumes, including when he says Ryan could pick up a tool belt and go as one of the Village People.

*****

"Dude, really, I fear the kids. Not that my house ever got egged. I mean, Marissa and Summer were way too... whatever, to sink that low. But I remember one year when Luke actually wrapped toilet paper around the tree right across from our driveway. Not that anyone believed me when I said that it was Luke. Or that my dad minded, but still."

"I still think ten bags of candy are more than enough, Seth."

"Hmm. I don't."

Ryan pauses, tilts his head to the side. For all Seth talks about comics and movies and games, classes and homework and the few people he actually interacts with before and after class, he doesn't say much about his family. "Are you going home for Halloween?"

Seth falls silent. Halloween is tomorrow, a Saturday, and if Seth really wanted to, he could catch an early flight out to California, arrive in time for lunch, watch his sister put on her costume and even take her out trick or treating. He could. She barely turned two, a couple of months ago.

"Nah," Seth says after a while, with an air of nonchalance that sounds too forced. "It's too much work. I have this paper for next week."

Only the paper is for Contemporary Critical Theory, and it isn't due until Thursday.

Ryan wants to ask more, for once in his life. He wants to know. He wants to ask what happened to Seth when he was little that he hates his family so much, hates them with polite pleasantries and bimonthly phone calls. What happened to someone who obviously wants to reach out to someone, but won't reach out to his own family?

"You would have liked Eve's party."

The gratefulness in Seth's tone, that Ryan didn't press him here, is unmistakable. "You think?"

Ryan nods, eyes half closing. "Yeah, you would."

"I would have gone as something interesting. Really interesting. Aragorn, probably. And if you ask me who Aragorn is, I might have to actually come back to Oklahoma to hurt you."

"I'd like that," Ryan says with a chuckle, and he can hear Seth's smile on the other end of the line.

*****

_He found a construction site to work at in early February. The pay wasn't good but it was enough to get him by, even if he had to hunker down in a back alley a few days a week, just to see it to the end of the same. It was winter and the days would start out cold, sun breaking through the dark clouds by midmorning, and then chilling up again at night. He'd sit down in the corner of an alley, behind a dumpster, put on his thick gray sweatshirt, soft with age, his leather jacket and fold his arms around his chest. He'd gotten used to sleeping in cold temperatures, in the chillness of the night._

_The foreman said he might have a bit more work for him, because they were going to start putting up drywall in a department building up by Duncan Park. Ryan told him that yeah, he could do that. He's done drywall before, he's even done the finishing more than a few times. Peter, the man's name was. Peter something._

_That job at Duncan fell through, and then they were laying people off when they got to the last three floors of the building Ryan had been working at._

_He was out of a job and with only seventy nine dollars in his wallet by April of 2005._

*****

He ends up going to the party, for reasons he doesn't want to dwell upon too deeply. He frowns while doing his best to knot the tie. He didn't used to ponder things too hard, too deeply, until of late. He finally gives up and decides to go without the tie, the first button of the long sleeve shirt open. He's always thought open collar is a good look.

He puts on his jacket and makes his way down the stairs.

Mrs. Landingham is sitting on the couch, remote in hand, watching AMC, this guy Rock Hudson in Pillow Talk, with an actress whose name Ryan can never remember, Doris something. He can hear her sighing, almost dreamily, and chuckles as he walks into the living room.

Turning around, a grin softens Mrs. Landingham's features, her blue eyes sparkling in the dim light of the TV and the lamp in the corner. "I see that you finally decided to enjoy yourself. You're barely twenty, Ryan. I've told you before, you should be out there, with people your own age. Maybe marry someone you really care for, settle down. Give me grandchildren."

Ryan blushes, ducking his head as something catches tight in his throat. It's not that... He's grateful to Mrs. Landingham, will always be. He wouldn't have a place to stay, almost call home, if it weren't for her. He'd thought it'd be for a day or two, and he'd pay her back by fixing the steps on the front porch, the missing planks in the fence, the cupboard that kept sticking. He'd never thought four years later he'd still be here, in the same room, with more things than he ever remembers owning.

He'd never thought she'd think of him as her son.

She makes a tsking sound with her tongue, and he looks up to see the way she's eyeing his costume. "I fear asking what you are."

He grins, big and happy and pleased with himself in a very childish way he doesn't wish to explain, not even to himself. "I'm a door to door salesman."

Mrs. Landingham laughs with irony in her tone, with a shake of her head. She stands up, and reaches for the collar of his shirt, pulls it straight, then brushes at his shoulders. "It's not that it isn't imaginative--" 

Actually, Seth had already scolded him for having no imagination whatsoever, would it have killed him to try and go as Legolas? He called early today, barely at seven. The party starts at nine and Bobby closed up early anyway, because Laura had wanted him home early, so he could try his costume, in case she wanted to add a few more things. Ryan really fears what Laura might have ended up forcing Bobby to wear.

"--but maybe you could have chosen something a little bit more... juvenile?"

Seth had suggested movies, or comics, or even a protagonist from a book or three. Ryan had told him he could dress as Harry Potter. Seth had felt a little bit insulted; he's going as Spiderman, apparently, to a party one of his classmates is throwing, Jennifer. Ryan's heard of her before. They are taking Currents in Contemporary Literature together. He knows Seth has friends he can ask for notes, maybe study together once or twice. He's even talked with them in the coffee shop near campus.

It's just that Seth always talked about them as classmates, not friends. Never friends. Seth can interact with a handful of people, makes jokes and is always on the lookout for very amusing gossip, Ryan just doesn't think they know who Seth really is.

_And you do?_

He blinks, looks up at Mrs. Landingham. He smiles. "I think it's okay."

She looks as if she wants to say something else, then just pats his shoulder and nods. "Of course, sweetie." She glances down at his hands for a moment, and Ryan frowns, before she chuckles and says, "give me a second."

She makes her way down the hallway and Ryan has no idea what she's looking for. Ryan turns to around to see the movie for a moment. He's never been one for movies. He recognizes most of them, usually seen the trailers the few times he does watch TV, but he's not one to go out to the movies by himself. Seth loves it, going to the cinema with a huge bowl of popcorn and an equally huge coke. Ryan smiles at the thought for a moment.

"Here," Mrs. Landingham says and Ryan turns around to see what she's carrying.

He can't help but chuckle, take the suitcase Mrs. Landingham is offering. The leather is worn around the corners, but worn with care and affection, Ryan thinks, the handle soft under his touch. He swallows and looks up at Mrs. Landingham, who's smiling at him.

"It used to be Harold's," she says with a smile, with a shrug. "I'd like you to keep it. It's doing nothing but being home to moths in the closet. I'd rather--"

"I can't take it," he says, and he remembers years ago when that would be his answer to most of what Mrs. Landingham would say to him, offer him, give him.

She shakes her head. "Nonsense. That suitcase saw the light of sun for almost thirty years. It must have hated it in there. No, I think you should take it out for a drive." She gives him a big grin, one he knows he can't really refuse, before taking her seat back on the couch. "I hope you have a great time. I'm expecting you to be back so late, I'll be too sound asleep to even hear you."

Ryan opens his mouth to say something, then closes it, because he knows he can't deny her anything. Instead, he opens the suitcase to see that she has filled it with kitchen brushes. When he looks up, she's looking at him. She's grinning.

Ryan sighs, but nods, smiles at her, and just stands there for a second, suitcase in hand, watching the way she picks up the remote, places it on her lap once again. Mrs. Landingham is eighty six years old, and at times like this, he worries about her. He nods again, then before he can overthink it, he crosses the space between him and her, and places a gentle kiss on the top of her graying her. Her hand catches his where he has placed it, on the arm of the sofa, to keep his balance. She squeezes it tightly, then caresses lovingly. Ryan closes his eyes against the kiss.

He pulls away, straightens up. She looks up at him from her seat on the couch.

"Have fun."

Ryan nods, soft smile on his lips, and for a second he feels so much for this woman his chest tightens terribly. "I will."

*****

Ryan doesn't think he'll be able to forget the Halloween party of '09 for a long time to come. And even if he could, even if he wanted to, there are _pictures_. He's actually considering asking Emily -- twelve and eager and with more energy in her pinky than Ryan has in his whole body -- for copies of the pictures she took with her brand new, birthday-present camera. He thinks Seth would really like a few of those.

Laura goes as either sleeping beauty or a fairy, Ryan's not quite sure which. He thinks Laura wanted to dress Bobby as a Prince Charming, but Bobby probably huffed and puffed so much (or maybe Ryan's just mixing up his bedtime stories) that Laura finally gave up and asked him to wear a suit, at the very least. They still look good, he thinks.

Around ten, after dancing with Barbara twice and with Laura a couple more times, Ryan lets himself fall back into one of the booths at Eve's, his feet hurting because he's wearing his good shoes, and he's only ever worn them for Mrs. Landingham's birthday gathering at the house and Christmas parties. 

Emily giggles and rushes to his side, Coke in hand. "Ryan!" She screams, almost throwing herself to his arms, stopping only because he raises one eyebrow at her. She pouts, but sits down calmly next to him, or at least as calmly as a twelve year old can manage.

"Your costume is boring," she announces, for the third time tonight.

He smiles at her, eyes the bar longingly; he really should have bought a beer before sitting down. She gives him a big grin, blond hair falling to her shoulders in waves, framing her face, blue eyes dancing with amusement. Even past the physical differences, she reminds him of Seth, and for a fleeting moment he misses him, hard and deep, but then the moment is gone and he thinks Seth would really like her.

"Rumor has it you're still talking with that California boy."

Ryan ducks his head, feeling his cheeks heating up. He opens his mouth to answer but doesn't know what to say. When he looks back at her, she's biting her lower lip, as if biting back laughter. She very well might be. "Yeah," he says after a moment, his voice lower than it should be. "I am."

She nods, bouncing on her seat. "That's good. I thought you two looked good together."

He frowns, and thinks about questioning her but then she's standing up and pulling him to his feet, practically dragging him to the dance floor that only sees any action in the weekends.

"I love this song!"

Ryan laughs, a joyful sound that blends into the chords of the music, a song he doesn't recognize, his hands taking Emily's and twirling her around.

*****

_It got to the point where it seemed like every single construction site in the whole metropolitan area of Austin required ID and address and phone number so he could do something as simple as apply mortar to a wall or help with the framework. It wasn't fucking difficult, a fucking monkey could have done it, and yet they wanted a previous address and a working phone number, and half those places wouldn't give Ryan the time of the day because he looked too young._

_He'd turned seventeen not a month before, and though he had considered getting himself a fake ID, those things cost money, and that's exactly what he didn't have._

_May was spent eating expired buns from the market on the corner of 31st and Benelva, because there were a couple of quiet streets not three blocks from there, where he could sit down and hug his backpack and get a couple of hours of sleep a night. The University of Texas was ten blocks from there too._

_The rain was the worst thing, because he'd get chilled to the bone, even with the two sweatshirts he owned, and catching a cold or pneumonia was really the last thing he needed at the moment. Some of the apartment buildings in the area had a gated backdoor leading to a dead end alley, and those back doors usually had a step leading to it. It wasn't much, but it got him off the wet ground and provided enough cover so as not to get soaked._

_He'd tried shelters twice, neither of which was something he wanted to experience again. He almost got robbed twice in one night in Phoenix, and got propositioned about five times, and groped once. He left the moment the place opened its doors the morning after and swore he wouldn't go there again. He didn't, not in Phoenix._

_He tried it again in El Paso, and the experience wasn't any better but at least it wasn't worse. He figured he was better off in the streets, in a park somewhere, or in an alley behind an apartment building or something. He was safer there._

_By the beginning of May, not even working the pool tables was paying off because he had been eating too poorly and not finding places to shower, let alone a way to wash his clothes. The people at the bars where he was more than welcome, weren't people he wanted to play with._

_By the second week, he'd gone past worried down to desperate. He considered asking for spare change on a corner but he kept telling himself it hadn't come down to that, not yet, not for a while. He was seventeen, if there was work for him to do, he'd do it, no questions asked, no reticence about it. He'd pick up garbage if they'd hire him._

_May 17th was a Tuesday, and Ryan had a dollar and seventy three cents he'd been saving for when he really needed it. He'd been going to the soup kitchens for the past two weeks._

_The food was weird looking and weird smelling, but it was food, and he could sit down on one of those long ass tables and put his backpack on his lap and pick up his spoon and eat without being too worried, without having to look over his shoulder every other second._

_It was Tuesday and the place was a little packed, and then some of the men there would be moving to the shelters, but Ryan didn't want to go there again._

_He finished his plate and thanked one of the women helping there. She couldn't be more than twenty four, twenty five. She nodded at him, told him they opened up at seven tomorrow morning, that he could find a warm cup of milk and some bread, if he arrived early. She gave him a pitying look. He could almost hear what she was thinking in the way her eyes looked at him._

_He looked down and away, thanked her again and left with his backpack in his hands._

_He went down to the bar on 32nd, but it was only ten o'clock and men were just starting to nurse their beers, not thinking about playing a game of pool and maybe losing a few bucks. And Ryan didn't have the luxury of even buying himself a beer and killing time until someone came along that would be willing to go a table with him. He'd been pretty sure he'd been smelling for the past two days, because washing up with the small bits of soap left behind in the gas station's bathroom would never be enough._

_He was walking down University Avenue, turning right on 30th, across from Adams-Hemphill Park, backpack slung over one shoulder, trying to think of nothing at all and specially not about how hungry he was and how tired he was and how he was only seventeen years old. He paused, took a step back, hit his back against a wall. There were posters glued to it, telling of bands that were performing in this or that bar, of new products coming out soon. He closed his eyes, tilted his head back and took in a deep breath._

_He didn't hear the honk of the car at first, that's how deep in thought or self pity he was. There was a second honk that he didn't pay attention to, either, and then a third, that made him open his eyes and blink against the not quite glare of the streetlight from the corner, leaving the place he was standing against almost deep in shadows._

_There was a car not six feet from him, not quite double parked. He could see the outline of someone leaning from the driver's side toward the passenger window._

_"You gonna stand up there all night?"_

_He blinked, took a step forward, hand over his eyes to keep the not so light drizzle out of his face. "Huh?"_

_It was a man, sitting on the driver's side. His voice was rough, impatient. He kept glancing over his shoulder, toward the park across the street, as if he was waiting for someone. "I don't have all night."_

_Ryan blinked, and then it all clicked and fell into place. His throat was tight and his arms folded on his chest, both hands sliding under his armpits. The strap of his backpack slid down from his shoulder to the inside of his elbow._

_The man snorted. "Goddamn it. You don't wanna work tonight, fine."_

_Ryan's left hand moved to his pants pocket, to the one lousy bill and few coins there, and he swallowed. His right hand pulled the strap of his backpack up to his shoulder, held on tight._

_"No," Ryan said, his voice breaking on that short word. He cleared his throat. "No, hmm." He didn't know what to say. He took another step forward, further away from the wall and into the dim light of the street lamp. "How do we--?"_

_Ryan took another step, and then another, and then he was close enough to the car to open the door. He leaned forward, left hand going to the edge of the rolled down window._

_The man smirked from inside, tongue darting out to lick his upper lip. "Alley around the corner, if that's good enough for you. I ain't paying for a fucking motel."_

_Ryan nodded, right hand gripping the strap of his backpack. "Yeah. Sure."_

_He didn't move, the man snorted. "Asshole. Get in the fucking car."_

_Ryan nodded, got in the car. He sat stiffly on the passenger side as the man pulled out into the street and then to the right, down Cedar, past 31st until he parked behind a brick building, so dim Ryan could barely look around. He could see a woman pressed against the corner, man holding her hands down above her head, his other hand roaming the inside of her dress. He looked away._

_"How much?"_

_Ryan blinked, turned around to look at the man. He was about to say, how much what, but then he saw the man reaching for his fly, the way his mouth was half opened. Ryan swallowed again._

_"Twenty," Ryan said, the number coming from somewhere inside him. "For a blowjob."_

_The light was enough to see the man smirk, and then Ryan heard the distinctive sound of the fly being pulled down and a groan from the man's mouth even though Ryan hadn't moved._

_Ryan swallowed, let the backpack fall down to his feet, and then turned around in his seat. He could hear the rain hitting the pavement outside, the tracks they made on the windshield, illuminated by the dim light. He closed his eyes for a second, a fleeting breath, and then leaned over._

*****

November 4th is a Wednesday, and Bobby asks Ryan to go out to the Wilson's ranch so he can take a look their tractor that's started its annual bitching. This isn't the first time he's had to work on it, on Betty. He's familiar with her, with the way Henry pats the back of her engine and tells her everything it's going to be okay, you probably just need some loving, baby, don't worry. It makes Ryan smile, the way Henry always talks to his Betty, as if it were a cow and not a mowing truck.

Betty is an old Row Crop tractor, and usually he wouldn't need a jack to slide under her, but one of her tires has puncture. He's gonna have to take the huge ass tire back to the shop, to patch it up, but that's the least of his problems. The transmission seems to be busted as well. He can feel the oil dripping from his hands down his forearm, touching his elbow and then going through the thick long sleeve shirt, falling onto his chest. The morning is only starting and the temperature has already dropped to the forty and change and he can feel his teeth chattering even as sweat makes its way down his forehead into his neck. He grunts as the lug nut just won't give and he thinks it makes this screeching sound, and he's frowning, and the next thing he knows he's biting his lower lip and the scream that dies in his throat.

He thinks he hears old Henry say something, call his name, and his right hand is holding onto Betty's underbelly and it's stupid of him to try to push up but he does. His eyes are squeezed shut and fuck if that doesn't hurt, if everything doesn't hurt, and somewhere in the back of his brain he can feel his left arm on fire, hot and blazing.

"Ryan!"

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath and starts counting in his mind so he doesn't scream his fucking head off, and _fuck_.

*****

About four hours later, a run through with the x-ray machine and the push of a syringe that surprised Ryan so much with the lack of pain it's almost a pleasure, a thirty-something doctor smiles at him and lets him know that he has clear ulna fracture. He's in Oklahoma County's ER, and the doctor can't seem to stop smiling or telling him how he's damn lucky the whole damn tractor didn't fall on his chest. It could have crushed it beyond repair. Heck, it could have crushed you to death.

He's lucky, yeah. And Henry feels like shit, is going to pay for everything, don't worry Ryan, my God, I'm just glad you're okay.

It's after a while that Ryan realizes that the doctor is still talking. He blinks, forces himself to listen. It's only after he hears, "no risk of loss of motion on the wrist and elbow" that Ryan blinks and asks the doctor to repeat.

"It's okay," the doctor says, and Ryan can't remember his name for the live of him. "The motion at the wrist and elbow is always regained, and the average loss of forearm rotation is about five degrees."

Loss of forearm rotation? The forearm has _rotation_?

"Non-unions are very rare, don't worry." Ryan nods at the doctor's words, like he understands what the man is talking about.

Later, Ryan lies on his hospital bed, his head turned to the side, left arm in a splint and held close to his chest. The sun is falling dark outside his window and he can feel his pulse in his temples, the way his head is pounding against each and every beat of his heart. He doesn't look at his hand, at the big plaster cast going from mid palm to his elbow. He doesn't think about the bill this hospital stay is going to cost him, even though he's leaving tonight. He doesn't think about all the work he won't be able to do. How he'll manage to drive a stick with just one hand for the next five months, he has no idea. Fucking tractor and stupid jack that after years finally gave up, just as Ryan was underneath, the edge of his left wrist getting caught in between the humid grass and the edge of the tire. 

He closes his eyes shut, bites the inside of his cheek and breathes.

*****

He can feel a hand caressing the side of his face, fingers touching his forehead. He's still in that state between sleep and awake, the pain medication too strong and Ryan too weak. He leans into the touch, smiles against the feel of someone caring for him, worrying about him.

"It's okay, sweetheart. Just sleep. I'm right here. I'm right here."

He thinks he nods at that, but he isn't sure. He sighs, cringes when he tries to turn to his side and his arm complains. The hand caresses his jaw, and then there's a kiss placed against his hairline.

Ryan sighs, relaxes, and keeps on sleeping.

*****

It's Henry who finally gets him out. Five months with the cast, best case scenario, it's a clean break and there doesn't seem to be any reason to believe the bone won't heal right. That had really scared Henry. Henry so guilt ridden he had just signed for the costs of the whole thing, and Ryan doesn't care if the man is really well off, which he is, it's just not fucking right.

Bobby drives him back, with Ryan sitting in the passenger seat and looking out the window, to the dark sky, Barbara and Mrs. Landingham going on ahead of them, in Barbara's car.

He makes his way up the stairs slowly, quietly, because every shift in position makes his arm ache and pound, and he can feel the pain all the way back to his throat.

When he has been left alone, finally, and Ryan can hear them make their way down the stairs, Mrs. Landingham knocks on the door softly before opening it slightly. She peers through the gap and smiles at him. "Do you need help with your clothes, sweetie? I'm sure--"

Ryan can feel himself blushing from his collarbone to the tip of his ears. He shakes his head. "No, no. I'm fine. I'm sure I can manage."

She doesn't seem convinced. "I had two boys, Ryan, or do you forget? There's nothing you have that I haven't seen before."

Ryan chokes on a breath, starts coughing, hand going to his mouth. After a second, he shakes his head again, watches the play of a smile on Mrs. Landingham's lips.

"I'm fine, Mrs. Landingham, I swear." And he is, really. Kinda. Mostly. He can feel a dull kind of pain from the tip of his fingers up to his shoulder, to his neck, to his cheek. He thinks it's the ghost pain from the painkillers starting to wear off, and his head hurts and the palms of his hands itch for reasons he can't understand, but he's here, and he has his arm, and Bobby has assured him that he still has his job, that if it weren't for Ryan, it would have been him, and he's far too old to deal with injuries like that. Ryan thinks Bobby could have broken more than just his forearm.

She smiles at him again, nods. "Okay, sweetie. Just yell if you need anything. I'm gonna whip you up something light. Toasts and egg, d'you think?"

"I'm really not--"

"Hush. Those pills the doctor prescribed can't be taken with an empty stomach and that thing they gave you back in that hospital isn't dinner, I tell you."

He sighs, but nods, and can feel his stomach waking up at the idea of toasts and eggs. "Thanks."

She nods, and just as she's pulling the door closed, she pushes it open once again. "Oh, I almost forgot to tell you. That friend of yours called, Seth."

Ryan sits up straighter on the bed. "He did?"

"Yeah. He said he'd been calling for a while. I heard the phone ring the moment I walked in. He said he'd been calling for the past hour. I told him Bobby was helping you out of the car, and that you'd call him when you could. I hope I did right."

Ryan swallows thickly, licking his lower lip with the tip of his tongue. He nods. "Yeah, yeah." He doesn't want to think what Seth thought, what he's thinking, or how freaked out he could be at the moment. "I should wait for him to call--"

"Nonsense. A call to California won't kills us, and I'm sure he's worried out of his pretty little mind." She chuckles, a girly sound he doesn't think he's heard Mrs. Landingham make before. "Call him. Tell him I say hi, and sorry for scaring him."

The door clicks as she pulls it closed, and Ryan sighs and reaches for the phone. The mere shift of his shoulders makes something pull inside him, down his arm, and he can feel the tightening of muscle and bone. His jaw tightens along with his whole body, and he bites his upper lip so hard, he thinks he draws blood.

He takes in shallow breaths though his mouth, head tilted back until it hits the headboard, and he can feel nerve endings hurting from his very toes to the tips of his hair. His right hand curls into a fist, and he counts his breaths -- one, two, three, four, _five_ \-- trying to focus his mind on something, anything, that's not the fucking pain that seems to almost vibrate along with his blood.

He slams his head back against the headboard, again, and again, and his eyes are closed so tightly shut his forehead starts to pound in rhythm with his pulse, and he wonders if it's from the pain or the head against wood. He doesn't know how long it aches, hurts with the heat of a thousand suns, but by the time he can take one breath that doesn't reverberate on his chest, there are red half moon on the palms of his hands and his jaw is sore and aching.

He reaches for the phone before he thinks twice about it, dials a number that, though this is the first time he'll be calling, he knows by heart.

Seth picks up on the first ring. "Ryan? Dude? Are you okay?"

The urgency in the voice, in the tone, the very palpable fear there, makes something inside Ryan warm up, and uncoil. He lets out a soft breath though his parted lips, leans back on the pillows of the bed, not in anxiety but in easiness, his eyes half closed. "Hey."

Ryan can hear Seth breathing out on the other end of the line. "God, Ryan. I can't... I thought..." Seth coughs, then Ryan hears movement and another sigh, a dry chuckle, a painful sound. "God, dude. Really. That's not funny. Not fucking funny at all."

Ryan smiles, softly and with care. "I know."

Seth chuckles again; Ryan doesn't like the sound of it. "Mrs. Landingham picked up, you know? God, you should have heard her! She said Bobby was helping you out of the car. She said... And I asked her, I mean, _I asked her_ , what do you mean, he's helping Ryan out of the car, but she wouldn't even let me finish the sentence before she was saying that you'd call me when you could and then she was hanging up on me!"

"Seth--"

"I wanted to call again. Dude, Ryan, you have no idea how much I wanted to call again. But she said... and I thought maybe something had happened and I didn't want to interrupt, get in the way, you know, so I was waiting here and it's been almost half an hour and holy shit dude, did something happen?"

Ryan chuckles this time, a hollow sound, and the mere movement makes something inside him pull again. Fuck. "I... yeah."

"I knew it! Are you okay? What happened?"

Ryan sighs, places his good forearm over his eyes, breathing out through his mouth, and tells Seth the whole story, from Henry's tractor, Betty, to what the doctor said.

"A cast?"

"Yeah."

"Just a cast?"

Ryan's teeth grind against one another. "It's a cast, Seth."

"I know, I know. I mean. What I mean is, it could have been worse, right? You were under a stupid third world country tractor from the Stone Age, you could have fucking died so yeah, a _cast_ is very mild compared to all the awful things I was imagining."

Seth is breathing hard when he finishes his tirade, and Ryan's headache has fallen back to a dull ache between his temples. He feels so tired he could sleep for a year and change.

"I mean--"

"I know what you mean, Seth." He sighs, lowers himself as much as he can with as little movement as possible, tilts his head against the corner of the pillow and lets his eyes fall all the way shut. "I know."

They fall into silence for a breath, two, ten. Seth's breathing is a gentle sound on the other end of the line, and Ryan can feel the soft wind from the half closed window. The night is quiet around him, familiar and comfortable, comforting.

His head feels stuffed, and his brain tired and his closed eyes make everything dull around the edges. The silence is almost lulling.

"Ryan?"

Ryan sighs, shifts on the pillows. He can feel his forehead pulsing along with his heartbeat and the pain from shoulder to fingertips has receded to the background. The night and Seth's breathing are lulling him to sleep. "Hmm?" Nothing but a slur, a breath, not quite a word.

Seth doesn't answer for the longest time, and for a moment Ryan wonders if he will, and then wonders if maybe he should hang up before he actually falls asleep with Seth on the phone.

"I was worried."

Sleep is nice and comfortable, a smile under the light of the night. "I know."

*****

_The man dropped Ryan off at the same corner where he picked him up, and Ryan got out of the car, both hands tight around the straps of his backpack. He took a step forward and then another, and then another, until his hands were pressed against the same wall he had been leaning back on not five minutes ago._

_He heard more than he saw the car drive off, and then he was stumbling to the corner and throwing up, one hand holding him up from brick and mortar. His throat felt raw and his eyes burned with anger and frustration. He could barely swallow, and his jaw ached like he had been punched and left behind._

_It took him a moment to calm down, for his stomach to settle enough so he could breathe and not gag at the same time. He leaned back against the wall, let himself slide down to the ground and his jaw clamped down. He hugged his backpack tight to his chest. He breathed in through his nose; he could still smell the man on his own breath._

_He bit down on both his lips, and then took in a shaky breath through his nose. His eyes kept burning._

_Except now he had a twenty where only a pathetic dollar had been minutes ago, and he could have something to eat that wasn't bread with an expired date. He could maybe even get a coke out of it, a night somewhere warm, even though he'd settle for dry. He could spring for a room, not care about tomorrow's meal. He could._

_He bit down on his upper lip hard enough to draw blood and felt his chest tight, compressed, crushed._

_He leaned back, hit his head against the brick wall, then once more for good measure. He took in a deep breath and then stood up with a jump, hand around the side of his backpack. He was hungry all of a sudden. Pizza, he thought, a slice of greasy pizza with a small coke and then find somewhere quiet in the park. But first, he needed to go to the gas station and brush his teeth._

*****

He still has his work, Bobby said, and he's grateful for that, more than anyone could know. It takes him a while to get used to driving with one arm, and it's not easy, and he's not going one mile over twenty, but he's managing. 

The cast, at work, is more than just a bitch. It's fucking uncomfortable and painful and more times than he can count he's wanted nothing more than to get the saw and cut right through it, to fucking hell with his arm. The only thing that stops him from doing that is that he's read the literature the doctor handed Mrs. Landingham; he knows what could happen to him if he doesn't take it easy, if he doesn't do the PT afterwards. The worse case scenarios are enough to scare him into shaping up. Losing a good percentage of mobility is not happening, period.

He spends the following days moving slowly, almost afraid, because the two times he's so much as touched his cast with anything that's not his body it has jarred like a son of a bitch, making his teeth clench and his head pound. He can still get down on the dolly and check the underbelly of the trucks or small cars. He can't change a tire worth shit, and he tried changing oil once and somehow hit his elbow, and he could feel the pain in his throat for hours after that.

And every night, by the time he arrives back at the house, the pain around him is almost a living force.

*****

"You could take something, you know."

Seth's gone over it (same spiel, different verse) almost daily for the past four days. Each and every night. Like clockwork. For Ryan, it's long past annoying.

Ryan takes in a shaky breath as the very air seems to rattle his arm. Today is not a good day. He grits his teeth and manages, "I'm fine."

Seth snorts on the other end. " _Right_. Because you sound like you're in constant pain just for the hell of it."

"Goddamn it, Seth. If you could just--"

"What, shut up? My voice rattling your arm? Pain going all the way down to your toes? That's not good! How much longer--"

"I swear to God--"

"--are you going to go like this, huh? It's just a fucking pill."

Ryan glances to this side, to the small pill bottle on top of his nightstand. The seal hasn't been broken. He swallows thickly, past the sweat accumulating on the back of his neck, on the palm of his hands.

He closes his eyes tightly and leans his head back against the top of the headboard. The sound it makes colliding with the wood is comforting in a sick and weird way, the quick shock of pain is refreshing.

When a minute passes and Ryan doesn't break the silence, Seth lets out an exasperated sigh. " _Fine_."

Seth starts bitching about his professor after that. The never ending words fired at Ryan are almost soothing.

*****

_He told himself he wouldn't do it again. He told himself it wasn't worth it. He told himself._

_In the end, it didn't matter._

_He made the twenty stretch for two days, but by Friday night he still hadn't found a job and he was down to three dollars and fifty cents. He wouldn't have enough for tomorrow, and if he was gonna do something, then he had to do it now, at night, or wait until tomorrow._

_He told himself he had no choice. He told himself a lot of things before standing across from Adams Hemphill Park, back against the brick wall, arms folded across his chest and trying not to shiver under the hard drizzle._

_"You're new."_

_He blinked, looked around. A woman was looking at him, her head tilted to the side. She was only wearing a thin thigh length coat, low cut top and short skirt, high heels on stocking clad feet. She couldn't be more than twenty five. She gave him a small smile. He had no idea how she wasn't freezing in this weather._

_He swallowed, looked around him, considered leaving for a moment, to hell with food or room._

_"It's okay, I'm not gonna make trouble for you." She chuckled, gazed down the street. "There's enough work for us both here. Besides, if they want you, they usually won't look at me twice."_

_He thought he was trying to give her a small smile, but felt like his face hadn't moved at all. She chuckled again, long dark hair moving along her shoulders in waves._

_"It's okay, kid. I'm not gonna bite. I play nice." Her tone was flirtatious and cocky. He felt like he was gonna be sick. "How old are you, anyway?"_

_"Eighteen," he said, more out of habit than a desire to lie._

_She smirked. "I don't think so. Try again. I'm not the cops, you know, it's not like I'm gonna bust you."_

_That had never even occurred to him. He knew he could get pulled over for soliciting or whatever it is they called it. He could get arrested. Then again, he'd spend the night someplace dry and maybe warm, have a meal at night and another one the following morning. He looked down and away._

_"You look pretty young. Hmm. Sixteen? Seventeen?"_

_He didn't know why it matter. He didn't know why she'd want to know, or he'd want to tell her. He was seventeen but he didn't feel his age. He nodded, looked up to see the way she was nodding her head at him._

_"Yeah, thought so. There's market for young and pretty, and with those lips, you'll get regulars soon enough."_

_He wanted anything but to have regulars -- need regulars._

_He felt her hand on his shoulder, and he looked up at her. She looked almost concerned, under all that make up._

_"You really are new at this, aren't you?" Her tone was soft, and her hand moved from his shoulder to his jaw. He took a step back. She lifted both her hands in a placating manner. He noticed her purse hanging from the inside of her elbow. "I'm just saying, sugar. Nothing wrong with asking. No need to answer."_

_Good, because he wasn't. He didn't need to, she'd seen right through him without him saying a word._

_They fell into silence, about ten feet from one another. A car slowed down, and she went to it. Ryan saw the way she leaned forward through the window, moved her hips from side to side, tantalizing, heard her teasing tone but not her words. He got an eyeful of the way the purple fabric of her skirt pulled tight around her ass. He could almost see the end of her panties between her legs, from this angle. She stood up straight and gave the driver the finger as he pulled away._

_"Fucking cheap." She snorted, walking back to the middle of the sidewalk, to Ryan's side. He swallowed again. "Forty for a fuck. Like hell, no matter how quick that asshole could be."_

_He looked down at his feet, at the jeans he was wearing, the t-shirt and zipped up sweatshirt, the knockoff leather jacket on top of that. He'd been thinking about buying a scarf, a wool hat from Good Will. He'd kept saying, when he had the money to spare. That's the trick, right there. He might never have money to spare again. He hasn't taken a shower in over a week now. He has to be stinking._

_"Here."_

_Ryan looked up, and the woman had something in her hands, offering it up to him. He squinted to figure out what it was. A bottle of perfume. The woman was smirking at him._

_"Sorry," she said, not at all apologetic, "but you kinda smell a little." She shrugged, offered it again and Ryan took it with a nod, something that might be called a smile on his lips._

_He pressed on the nozzle once, under each armpit, and then once again from the front. He gave it back to her, and smelled himself, and he smelled like a woman._

_"It's lilacs, but at least it's better."_

_"Yeah, it is." He swallowed, and his throat felt itchy. "Thanks."_

_She opened her mouth in mock surprise. "Oh, he speaks!" She chuckled, putting the bottle back in her purse. "No problem. It's a very cheap brand."_

_He assumed so, yeah. She took out a cigarette from her purse, lit one. She offered the pack to him as she took a long drag._

_He looked at the pack, at the four cigarettes left inside. It had been months since the last time he'd smoked, back in March. He just couldn't afford it, not and eat at the same time. He'd itched for one for weeks after that day._

_She moved her hand closer to him. He took one and she stepped closer to light it. Ryan took a long drag, feeling the nicotine make its way down to his lungs, tasting it, a light pressure between his eyes from so long since his last smoke. He could almost moan at the feeling._

_"Yeah, I know what it feels like."_

_He opened his eyes, only then noticing they had fallen closed. He looked at her, at the way her voice had sounded sad, almost bitter._

_They fell silent after that. She just stood there, fingers around her cigarette, putting it in between her lips flirtatiously, blowing off the smoke like a caress._

_When a car pulled up next, the man said, "You, kid."_

_Ryan swallowed, froze up in a second. She made her way to Ryan, stood up close to him, close, intimate._

_"Go on," she whispered against his ear, her breath warm in the chilly night. "Blow him, make it fast and think about nothing at all."_

_She pulled away, gave him a smirk that he only blinked at. She shoved something in his hand, and he closed his fingers around it. It took him a moment to realize what it was, to recognize the texture and the shape. He hadn't thought about condoms._

_Her smile softened for a minute, or maybe it was a trick of the light. "Be careful," she said._

_He nodded, pocketing the condom._

_"Ask for fifty," she said finally, taking one last drag of her smoke and letting it fall from her fingers, stepping on it with the tip of her high heeled shoe._

_He turned around, took a step forward, backpack over one shoulder, and then another. He leaned forward on the window, tilted his head to the side. His jaw clenched even as he tried to loosen it up. "You looking for something?"_

*****

On the 22th, a Sunday, Ryan shifts too fast, hits a step of the stair all wrong. He tries to compensate for it. He hits his elbow on the banister, holding on for dear life as not to fall on his ass, or worse, his side.

The pain leaves him breathless, sweating, and vibrating with residue twinges for hours to come.

*****

"Vicodin is not your enemy, you know?"

Ryan swallows, grits his teeth. "I'm fine."

"Yeah, well. I can hear you're in pain and I'm a million miles away. So, yeah. There."

"Seth--"

"What? I might not have seen how bad that thing with the tractor was but I have an imagination, you know? And a pretty one at that. And dude, I'm certain it wasn't pretty. Add to that you tripping--"

"I didn't!--"

"--then no wonder you sound like you ran a marathon and are about to commit double murder."

Ryan has no idea what that even means.

"Look, I can recognize you're in pain, _through the phone line_ , I really don't think--"

" _I'm fine_."

Seth falls silent, and when a minute ticks by, and then another, and then Seth starts muttering about stupid Chino guys who don't know what's best for them, but then talks about his Critical Theory class without breaking his stride, Ryan knows he's dropped it. It's almost a miracle, really, even though he knows there are a thousand and one questions that Seth now has. He just doesn't know how to begin to answer them.

He wouldn't know where to start.

He glances at the bottle of pills. Mrs. Landingham has asked about it as well, not as head on as Seth himself, but close. Close enough. Ryan refused time and time again, and then Mrs. Landingham let it go as well.

After the day they brought him back from the hospital, Ryan hasn't taken a painkiller. He tried Tylenol, but the fracture had laughed in the face of that white pill. He doesn't want to try anything stronger. Vicodin is definitely out of the question.

He sighs, takes in a deep breath and then lets it out through his mouth. The pain had lessen to only a dull reminder about a week after, and now, almost two weeks later, it had only jarred him because of the misstep. It will go away again, tomorrow morning, so he sees no point in tempting fate.

Seth's still babbling. He likes that, Seth's babble. It's soothing in more ways than one.

Then again, for a second that lasts a lifetime, Ryan wants to take it. His fingers itch for that small orange bottle and to pop it open, he'd take it dry. It'd probably kill the constant headache he's had since that November 4th in ten seconds flat. But he can't. He won't risk it. At the end, he's only Dawn and Frank's son.

When Seth pauses to take in a breath, Ryan tells him the latest gossip around town, how Amelia, apparently, is pregnant. She's only sixteen. People say she's dropping out of school. Seth gasps in all the right places as Ryan tells him the story as he's heard it.

*****

_The guy drove for three blocks before turning his car around the corner, down a similar alley, dark and humid. The light drizzle that had started a few hours ago had picked up, and the rain hit the windshield with a loud splattering sound. Ryan didn't like it. Long time ago, Ryan used to love the rain. Lately, he'd started to hate it._

_It took less than ten minutes, more like five. The man drove him back to where he picked Ryan up, and Ryan took his money in a crumble of bills and shoved them into his pocket. He stepped out of the car and walked straight to the wall, leaning forward. This time he didn't throw up, but his throat felt just as raw._

_After a moment, he looked around the place, down the street. She wasn't there anymore. He swallowed, turned away. He had thirty now. He could leave, try to get the best out of that money. Tomorrow could be his lucky day, the day he actually found a place that would hire him. It could be. It could happen._

_He refused to stay there for another one, because he wasn't doing this to save or to pay bills or to support himself. He was doing it because he had no other choice. He was doing it to pay for tomorrow's breakfast and lunch and dinner. He was doing it with the hope that maybe he could scrounge up enough to get a room so he could sleep anywhere but on the ground._

_He looked down the street, a block and a half, two, where he could see the silhouette of four or more working women. He would find even more the further south._

_He slung his backpack over his shoulder, turned around and started walking the other way._

_He thought about her for a second, the woman he had just met, hoped she was okay, that she was safe. He told himself he wouldn't see her anymore._

_He saw her for a whole month._

*****

The first week of December, the sky darkens with clouds, one of the first real signs of winter finally arriving. It's a late Thursday afternoon and the coldness is starting to pick up when Mrs. Wright walks into the shop. Ryan's almost horizontal on the passenger seat of a dark green sedan, going over the ignition. It seems to have gone on the fritz, actually, because Bobby went over the engine and everything should be working properly, except for the single fact that the car won't start.

"Ryan, hi."

Ryan turns around, connections in hand, gives her a quick glance before nodding in the general direction of her. "Mrs. Wright, good afternoon."

She's in her late forties, black hair pulled back in a low ponytail, silver rimmed glasses perched on her nose. She has a pretty smile, laugh lines around her mouth that suit her, make her look established instead of old. She's wearing a thick turtle neck sweater over nice fitting jeans, sneakers instead of high heels.

"I was hoping I could have a minute of your time."

He frowns, but nods, pushes himself into a sitting position. The pain in his arm, as he predicted, went away by mid afternoon of the following day. He can still feel the ache all the way to his teeth when he hits his elbow, like against that car door not even a week ago, but it's getting better. It has to.

"It's okay," she rushes to say when Ryan tries to stand up. She gives him a big smile, takes a step closer to the wide open door of the passenger seat. "You don't need to stand up, Ryan. It can't be easy."

Ryan shrugs, half embarrassed. "I do okay."

She nods again. "Of course. What I wanted to ask you was, hmm. Well, it's mostly about Lainy."

Ryan frowns. Lainy, Mrs. Wright's daughter, can't be more than ten. Actually, he's pretty sure she's ten. He thinks he heard about the party they threw for her last June. Every kid in town was invited, and most of her class from school. "Something wrong?" 

She shakes her head, smile still on her lips. "No, no, nothing wrong. Well, hmm." She chuckles, a girlish sound. "Anyhow, she's been having problems with geometry. I think she hates math, which might be my fault, because I did too, back at school." She shrugs. "My mom, she used to say how math was important, how I had to learn it, how I'd need it when I grew up. I never got that, never really believed her. I don't think Lainy believes me either."

He smiles and nods in all the right places, but has no idea what this means, why this woman is telling him this.

"I was thinking maybe you could tutor her?"

He's looking up at her because he's sitting down and his right hand is still around the rag he was using to clean his fingers and all he can do is blink at her. "Excuse me?"

She takes a step forward, closer to the car, around the opened car door and leans forward, one hand on the top of the opened window, the other on the roof of the car. Ryan swallows, a memory going swiftly through his mind, crushing it before he can really remember it.

"It wouldn't have to be a lot," she says in a rush, eagerness on her tone. "I mean, I know my kid, and she's smart, she just doesn't like to apply herself. She'd be glued to that computer of hers if I let her. I have no idea why John bought it, but never mind that now. I mean, two hours a day, two or three days a week, tops. Just enough so she actually gets what she's doing."

Ryan keeps on blinking. It's almost as if she's talking another language, as if she's asking something horrible of him, as if she's asking for his secrets. She's not. They don't know he never got around to finishing high school, was in Anaheim around the time his sophomore year would have started. He swallows.

"I... I don't know if I'm the right person," he says after a moment, the words not quite loud in the otherwise silent garage.

"No, but Ryan, you're perfect." She crouches before him, so they are at eye level. Ryan can feel himself swallow thickly, his hands tightening around the rag. "I really don't like the older kids from her school. I mean, the ones from town are fine, but..." She shrugs. "They all tend to want to do their homework and leave it at that. And I don't want Lainy hanging out with someone older than her who will only teach her horrible things. But you, you, you're polite and nice and such a gentleman. You'd never go out with a girl on a couple of dates and then leave her high and dry and pregnant."

Ryan looks down and away. Everyone seems to be talking about Amelia, even if it's only in a passing mention. He saw her, Amelia, around town a couple of days ago. He had gone to the store to buy milk because they had run out and he had told Mrs. Landingham that he could very well still do the shopping, thank you very much. Amelia had her head ducked, a thick and loose sweatshirt on, and picked up what she needed and left in a rush. He feels for her, he really does.

"It'd only be a couple of hours a day," she says with a tilt of her head, when he's fallen quiet.

"I work until six," he says as an answer, shrugs as he does so.

She smirks at him. He really doesn't like it when women smirk at him. It makes him feel like they know something he doesn't, he couldn't possibly be smart enough to know.

"Lainie has geometry on Tuesdays and Fridays, and you are getting home before seven, so I could have her there at seven on Mondays and Fridays. Two hours, she'll be back right in time for bed. And then maybe Saturdays or Sundays for a couple more hours." She nods, enthusiastic about it. "I'm sure we could work it out." She sighs, leans forward with a request in her eyes. "I just want what's best for her, and I think you're it."

He sighs, rubs his eyes with the back of his hand. He really didn't see that one coming, not by a long shot. He only got as far as 9th grade, back in Chino Hills, so it's not like he has the best background.

"I didn't... I mean, I never..." He doesn't know how to say this, how to say it without feeling like he's lacking, stupid. He shrugs. "I got a 98 percentile on my SAT scores."

That's as much as he will say, and she seems to understand. She nods, the smile on her lips more motherly and understanding than he deservers. "You took geometry, I take it?"

She's not asking how far along he got before he left, and he's not exactly telling. He nods. "Yeah. Geometry and Calculus, and Chemistry."

She gives him a quick grin. "Everything Lainy doesn't like and everything she might not like in the near future, I'm sure you'll figure it out with her books. Perfect, I tell you."

He smiles back at her, and takes a deep breath that doesn't compress his chest. His left hand itches, feels rough and oily and dirty, and for a moment he thinks he can do this, he can actually do this.


	5. Chapter 5

Ryan tells Seth about the tutoring thing that same night. It's December, the first Thursday of the month, and he's only known Seth for seven months, saw him for nothing but two days. And yet everything that happens in his life ends up being told over the phone to someone on the other side of the country. Ryan should find that disturbing, but doesn't, not really.

"I mean," he says after a moment, right hand at his side, pushing himself a little off the bed as to shift without jarring his shoulder too much. "I used to be pretty good with math and physics back at school." He might have been better, given the opportunity. Very consciously, he doesn't think about that.

"Hey, that's great, Ryan." He can almost hear Seth nodding on the other end of the line. "Really great." 

He feels a blush on his cheeks, and he ducks his head and looks to the side. "It's not that big of a deal."

"No, it actually is. It is for you, dude." There's a pause, thick silence falling between them. Seth could leave that sentence alone and Ryan wouldn't mind, but he knows Seth, and he won't. "I know you like feeling useful, helping people. I just... I'm glad for you."

Ryan sighs, nods to himself even though Seth can't see him. They fall into silence heavy with a question Ryan knows Seth wants to ask but doesn't. Ryan is grateful for small mercies. 

Did you go to college, hangs over them.

I didn't even finish high school, Seth.

He has never told that story before. Not even to these people he's been living with for four years. And maybe what scares him the most is that he wants to tell Seth. Everything, all of it. He just needs to know that he'd be able to tell the story, right to the end, if he were to begin it.

He's gotten so used to folding his arms over his chest, doing it with one arm feels kinda funny. He can feel the chilling floor underneath his feet. The first snow started this morning, nothing but a whisper of what could come, the snow melting on the main road hours later, the sun high in the sky. He wonders if Seth has ever seen snow.

"So, how was your Currents in Contemporary Literature class?"

*****

Time moves slow and fast at the same time, Ryan not quite noticing it's December even though he's seen the first snow, not until he tells Mrs. Wright that he accepts her offer, and she tells him that school is letting out in a week, and so if they could do a couple of sessions through the holidays, so Lainy would be all caught up by the time January rolled along.

And then he starts noticing how people are getting out their Christmas decorations, and that Saturday Mrs. Landingham tells him that he really should go up to the attic and get down the garlands, and maybe start looking for a tree.

He does. He buys a tree and brings it into the house. He helps Mrs. Landingham with decorating it and then lets her shoo him out of the living room so she can start to make it look like a store threw up in there. His arm barely hurts and he’s getting most of his mobility back, even if closing his hand into a fist still hurts. But things are good. Things are fine. The only downside to all this is that it's December.

Ryan really isn't fond of the Holidays.

*****

_He kept on looking for a job, stubborn through and through. He kept telling himself, he could find something. He could. He just needed to keep on looking._

_He was back on that corner on Monday night. The woman saw him, gave him a small smile with a touch of sadness in it and stretched out her hand. "Kelly," she said her name was._

_Ryan swallowed, arms tight around himself. He didn't want this, not anymore than he had wanted his life from the moment his mom kicked him out. He sighed, and took her hand. "Ryan."_

*****

_"I'm heading back to Newport for the holidays."_

Ryan thinks he's heard almost every tone of voice Seth could possibly use, but this one is entirely new. It's a mixture of pain and sorrow, of anger that's been diluted through the years though it keeps most of its consistency. He doesn't like this tone of voice at all.

"Oh." He thinks about saying, I'm sorry, but doesn't know if that will be well met.

_"Yeah."_

The silence is heavy and almost impossible to breech. Ryan knows he has issues that would probably fill up a library on the psyche, but really, Seth seems to have just as many, and just as complex.

 _Takes one to know one_ , and that very thought is disturbing in its rightness.

"It can't be that bad," leaves Ryan's lips before he can stop himself, and he closes his eyes and hits his head against the wall twice before letting out a harsh breath through his mouth. Seth laughs on the other end, hollow and sharp around the edges, and Ryan closes his eyes in a grimace. "I'm--"

_"No, no, you're right. It can't be that bad. It certainly won't be as bad as growing up there. I know it'll only last for two days and then I'm heading back to Providence. That's a small mercy."_

He opens his eyes slightly, glances over to corner of the room. He still has his black backpack, hidden on the top shelf inside the closet. He still has that black leather jacket and gray sweatshirt that's so thin it's almost translucent. He just never allows himself to look at them.

"I hope the time runs quickly," Ryan whispers, and the words are a small consolation.

We've gotten through it, it's what Ryan really wants to tell him. It's nothing but a memory now, Seth. It's nothing but scars left behind that will grow even thinner the more years pass. We got through it with our sanities more or less intact.

He just doesn't know how to say that.

_"I hope so too."_

*****

December 24th of 2009 falls on a Thursday. There's a big party at Mrs. Landingham's, like almost every year for the past twenty, as far as he's heard. It's one of the largest houses in town, at least, and the dinning room is huge and can seat almost thirty people when pulling the small kitchen table next to the long oval one.

Everyone's invited, at least everyone staying in town. Some of the families are going to visit parents or grandparents, and in the end there are only twenty seven guests, including Mrs. Landingham and himself.

It starts on that day, around six in the morning, when Barbara and Nellie and Laura arrive to help out with all the cooking needed. Actually, it started two weeks before, when Ryan was given specific instructions about the two turkeys they were buying this year.

They sit at the large oval table at six, and dinner consists of two turkeys and stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy, vegetables and Triffle. They don't stand up until after eleven, and then move everything to the living room, where the children in the house start opening the presents with enthusiasm that only children have. The grownups are a little more subdued in the ripping of paper.

Ryan doesn't go up to his bedroom until two, and then he's lying on the bed and closing his eyes. He thinks about the backyard for a moment, about the fence running through the property, about standing there and just looking out into nothing and feeling like this is a good place to start something, or at least give it a shot. It's nothing but a memory, of four years ago, when the sky seemed to open up and give him hope, but it feels like yesterday and today and tomorrow, and he can hardly breathe from the shock of it.

The phone rings and Ryan picks it up before the ring ends. He glances at the clock, notices it's a quarter to three.

"Hey," he says into the receiver, because he knows of only one person who would call at this time of night.

There's silence on the other end, and for a moment Ryan worries that it's not actually--

_"Hey."_

He smiles, features softening around the edges, and he closes his eyes again and leans his head back until it's resting on the pillow.

They speak in nothing but silence for a minute, two, ten. When Ryan thinks that maybe Seth has fallen asleep on the other end, because he's close to doing so here, Seth says, _"I really, really can't wait to go back to Providence."_ Seth's voice has an edge of desperation to it, sadness laced along the edges.

Ryan sighs, features shifting in affection, and nods, because he knows, because he understands. Seth doesn't fit with his family the way a square peg doesn't fit in a round hole. And it's okay, because Ryan has felt like he doesn't fit anywhere at all for the last six years.

He turns his head around, glances toward the window, toward the horizon of grass and land that he can't see through the pulled curtains, to the stars that adorn the sky. And in that second, more than in all the months before, in the last six years, he wants to give this person that understands him, that he understands, something. He wants to give Seth something.

He opens his mouth and for a moment he thinks it will run wild, that words will come spilling out and they will be his undoing, that he will die with them in his lips, and then it ends. The moment is gone and no words have come from it.

He takes in a shallow breath, feels his resolve unfolding, spilling through his fingers like sand. And before they are all gone, before he's left with nothing but air he forces himself to open his mouth and say something, and all that comes out is, "My mom's name is Dawn."

The words sound as a confession in the stillness of the night, and end like such. It's nothing but a sentence, a name, but it feels like it weights him down, and then it's lifted, and that Seth will understand what he means by that, will treasure the name and the knowledge. Like Seth will know it's all he can manage, for now.

Silence meets him, again, and it's good, and it fits, and it's them. They don't speak. They don't need to.

*****

Seth's flight is on Sunday, the 27th, bright and early, and he tells Ryan how he really wanted to get a flight on the very day of the 25th, even if it was a red eye, but he really didn't have a good enough reason to get back so quickly.

Ryan doesn't work that Saturday, but spends the day outside in the garden that's covered in white, watching Mrs. Landingham watch the snow fall.

The afternoon goes by in a blur of white and endless white. The weather channel advises that a storm is moving in by midweek, but there's nothing new about that. People in town don't tend to leave for the holidays, or if they do, they know better than try to get back in the middle of a storm. Some parts of the 40th can get iced, and Oklahoma City really doesn't have the removal equipment other cities have at their disposal.

Mrs. Landingham goes to bed early, complaining about her knees, the cold not really helping her arthritis. She's lucky, she says as she makes hot cocoa enough for both of them. Mrs. Straub, a few years younger than her, a widow as well, can hardly knit anymore; her fingers can't quite bend.

Ryan sits down in the living room, TV on and yet not quite watching, hot cocoa in one hand, the other close to his chest. He can hear the snow falling outside, covering the backyard, covering everything for as far as the eye can see. Ryan takes in small breath, tilts his head back and closes his eyes.

The ringing of the phone surprise him, and it takes him a moment to place the mug on the small corner table before picking up.

"Hello?"

Silence answers him before he can hear a soft, _"Hey."_

Ryan smiles, shifting on the sofa, phone in between ear and shoulder. "Hey."

Seth falls into silence, heavy and unraveled, and Ryan wants to ask what happened, what did they say, what did they do, to make Seth hide in silence instead of words. He doesn't ask, wouldn't know how. Instead, he lets Seth command the silence, keep it around him until he feels safe enough, hidden enough, to speak. It doesn't take long.

_"I'm hiding."_

The corners of Ryan's lips curl in something that's not quite amusement, that's not quite sadness either. "Hiding?"

Seth doesn't answer, but Ryan can see him nodding, even though he's a few states away. _"In the pool house."_

Ryan frowns, not quite understanding. It takes him a moment to come with the image, the picture, the very memory of those three or four months he spent down there in Newport, putting up drywall, setting up plaster. He remembers the infinity pools, living rooms large enough that they used to leave him a little breathless, no matter how many times he worked there. And he remembers the one bedroom houses by the pool, with floor to ceiling windows, curtains and their own kitchen and bathroom. Pool houses; he remembers.

_"I used to hide here," _Seth continues, and Ryan doesn't know how to sigh that won't make a sound, that won't pain him. _"It was... I used to hide here a lot."___

__Ryan nods, and knows it isn't enough but what could he possibly answer to that._ _

___"They didn't notice. If they did, they never mentioned it. I would bring back down a couple of comics, my flashlight and camp out, pretend I was away, in some wild territory or something. It's stupid."_ _ _

__It was the way you coped, Seth. We cope in different ways. I simply pretend those months in Austin never happened._ _

__"It isn't," Ryan whispers, breath leaving his lips but not quite making a sound. Seth chuckles, the same dry, hollow and dark and horrible sound Ryan remembers from months ago, the one he never wanted to hear again. "Tell me about your sister," he asks, not knowing where it came from. "How's Sophie?"_ _

___"Oh. Hmm. She's... she walks funny."_ _ _

__Ryan chuckles. "She's two, Seth, of course she walks funny."_ _

___"Well. She talks funny too."_ Ryan's about to point out, again, that she's only two, when Seth continues. _"She looks a lot like my mom. She's gonna be just like her."__ _

__It doesn't sound like praise. Sounds like anything but, coming from Seth._ _

___"I used to wish for a brother or a sister, did I ever tell you that?"_ _ _

__Ryan swallows, shakes his head. "No."_ _

___"I did. I... I used to ask for a brother, actually. I would have wanted an older brother, but I would have settled for a younger one. I wanted one so badly."_ Seth's voice ends in a whisper. _"I... at some point I stopped asking, and then Sophie came along."__ _

__And she's everything Seth never wanted in a sibling. She's everything Seth's been trying so hard to run away from, hide from._ _

__"My brother and I used to hide outside," Ryan says, head ducked away, eyes narrowing slightly, as if wanting to see the details in a blurry photograph. Maybe it's just his memories that are blurry. "We used to... when our parents would fight, we'd leave the house, go to a friend of his. Trey's idea. We'd go to Eddie's or Arturo's, or Jack's. Just hang out."_ _

__Hang out, have a couple of beers. Trey used to get high and Ryan used to wonder how much it would take for him to get high as well._ _

__It was easier, he doesn't say. Hiding is always easier. He doesn't say, and Seth doesn't need to agree._ _

__*****_ _

__The last week of December goes by quicker than Ryan would have thought. He has an appointment with his doctor, x-rays need to be taken to make sure his arm is healing nicely. He confirms that it is, nothing to worry. Just more months to go. Ryan dares to believe he'll have the cast off before his birthday._ _

__Seth goes back to Providence that Sunday, telling his parents that he has papers due the minute school lets back in and he has so much to read and stories to proof read. The excuses sound shallow when he runs them past Ryan, and he thinks that no matter what Seth tells them, they'll know he just doesn't want to stay in that house another minute._ _

__*****_ _

__Seth spends New Year's at Jennifer's, has one too many glasses of vodka and calls Ryan after three in the morning._ _

__Ryan spends New Year's at Eve's bar, has one too many bottles of beer and is wide awake and looking out of the window when Seth calls._ _

__They don't say anything through the phone, only hold onto it as tight as they can, breathing in tandem, raggedly in through their noses and out through their mouths. At least Ryan is, and he's pretty sure so is Seth._ _

__*****_ _

___He spent a week refusing to go close to that corner. He had slept in a motel room that Monday, if only to shower and sleep in peace, but the next morning he was out and looking for something, anything. But he'd barely turned seventeen two months ago, he had a long way before eighteen. And even then, if they were to ask about a phone number or current address, then he was just as fucked._ _ _

___He spent that week eating at a soup kitchen, doing the queue for a plate of food, nodding his thanks and keeping his head low as he turned around and made his way toward the long tables._ _ _

___"Hey."_ _ _

___Ryan looked up, blinking himself out of his stupor. His hands tightened around the brim of his plastic plate._ _ _

___There was a girl looking back at him, small smile on her face. A girl, not any older than him. And she was looking back at him. Ryan swallowed._ _ _

___She gave him a quick smile, there and gone from her lips, taking a step forward, slowly._ _ _

___He thinned his lips, looked at her, wanted to ask her what she wanted but refrained from doing so._ _ _

___"It's been raining kinda hard lately," she said, her voice low, unthreatening. As if he were an animal that would get spooked if she talked too loud. Worse thing was, Ryan feared he might be. She shrugged. "There're some clothes out back, thick coats, jacket, sweatshirts. Maybe I could find you something?"_ _ _

___He looked at her. She had dark blue eyes, a round face, high cheekbones, long reddish hair that falls over her shoulders. It had been so long since he had looked at a girl, really looked at her, as if she were something pretty, something to be admired. It had been so long. If another lifetime, in another world, he would have asked her out._ _ _

___She chuckled, almost in nervousness, shrugged her shoulders once again. "I mean, I just thought." She laughed again, soft and low and girly, a pretty laugh. "If you want."_ _ _

___It took him a moment to go over her words once again, to understand what it was she was asking. He could feel his backpack over his shoulder, two t-shirts and one thin sweatshirt inside, besides the one he was wearing and the leather jacket he still had. The meal in his hands was cooling slowly. He nodded._ _ _

___She smiled at him, a nice smile, her eyes wide and blue, her lips rosy. "Good. Hmm." She looked over her shoulder. "If you could just--"_ _ _

___She turned around and went past the long table where they serve the food, down a hallway, and Ryan followed her, taking the plate with him._ _ _

___They passed a small kitchen, two people working inside._ _ _

___"Lindsay, what--?"_ _ _

___The girl gave the woman inside a smile. "I'm just going to find him something thick, that’s okay, right?"_ _ _

___Ryan glanced between the girl and the woman, eyes blinking rapidly, scared, worried. Maybe it wasn't. Maybe this girl, this Lindsay shouldn't have--_ _ _

___The woman smiled. "It's okay, kiddo. Just go. Hurry back."_ _ _

___Lindsay nodded. "Of course, Mom," she said, rolling her eyes, going past the kitchen to another storage room, and Ryan followed her._ _ _

___There were a few boxed piled up, not many but a few, with clothes inside that Ryan could see. She started moving around, going from one box to the next, looking for something in particular. Ryan just stood there, plate in his hands. He looked down at it and took the spoon they had given him and took a sip. The soup was cooling quickly, and the taste was getting a bit worse, but it would fill him, it would make him forget._ _ _

___"Here."_ _ _

___He looked up, and the girl had a thick sweatshirt with a hood, without a zipper on the front, in her hands. It was black, or it used to be black but enough washes had dulled the color to a very dark gray. It said Berkeley on the front, in big capital letters. For a moment Ryan thought someone was going to miss it._ _ _

___He glanced back at her and she was looking at him, happy and pleased to have been able to do this for him. Ryan wanted to give her a smile in thanks, but didn't know how anymore._ _ _

___He nodded, then glanced back at his plate and up at her. Her smile wavered, but then she was extending her hand even as he was tightening his._ _ _

___"I could hold it for you, the plate, while you put on the sweatshirt," she said, half asked._ _ _

___He hesitated, but nodded, and gave her the plate. He took off his jacket in a hurry, and the thinning gray sweatshirt felt soft on his fingertips as he took it off as well. He placed it in between his legs for as long as it took him to put on the black sweatshirt, and then the jacket on top. She smiled at him as she gave him back his cold plate._ _ _

___"It fits."_ _ _

___It did. He nodded. "Thanks," he whispered._ _ _

___She blinked at him, surprised, taken back. "You're welcome," she answered back, nodded at him._ _ _

___He looked at her one last time before turning around, hurrying out of the storage room and through the kitchen, found a seat at one of the tables, as far away from the food table and that doorway as possible, and finished his cold meal._ _ _

___He never saw her again._ _ _

__*****_ _

__Seth's birthday is on January 18th, and Ryan has bought, wrapped and mailed the package so it will arrive that Monday, and Seth will find it the moment he steps out of the elevator, the moment he checks on his mailbox in the lobby._ _

__He's not surprised to hear the garage's phone ringing a few minutes past nine, because Seth has a class at ten and he tends to leave an hour before to kill time with his friends._ _

__It takes him more than a minute to slide out from under the car, then come to a sitting position on the dolly and finally make his way into the small office. The phone keeps ringing, almost as if Seth knows perfectly well that Ryan's just taking his time to answer._ _

__Ryan picks up._ _

___"Oh, you didn't."_ _ _

__Ryan can't help but chuckle low in his throat, lean against the edge of the desk and fold his arms across his chest, phone cradled in between ear and shoulder. "I didn't what?"_ _

__Hearing Seth sputter is always the highlight of Ryan's day. _"What, what, what do you mean, what? This. I can't... I only said it in passing, you know? I mean, we even talked about how we weren't going to exchange stupid presents on stupid Christmas and I just thought..."__ _

__"You thought what?"_ _

__The silence that follows is almost scary in its stillness. Ryan takes in a small breath, stands up straight. Maybe he miscalculated. Maybe he... He should have gone with something more generic, a sweater or a wallet. Maybe he shouldn't--_ _

___"It must have been difficult to find."_ _ _

__Seth's voice is low and thick, barely above a whisper, and Ryan's face softens and he understands, because being cared for can take one by surprise._ _

__It was, just a little. It's one of the dozens of items Seth's missing from his Batman collection. It's not the first issue, because that one costs a small fortune and a half, but it's issue #405, the second item in the 1987 arc _Year One_. It's the deluxe version, with rich detailing of the colors, and Seth was never able to find either of the four issues at a price that wouldn't mean diving into his trustfund. It took Ryan almost two months and some serious internet time, as well as a learning curve of the whole story of Batman and all the significant issues, and seemingly stupid questions about which ones Seth had or not. _ _

__Ryan had thought it'd be the perfect present, when he finally found it, or something as difficult to find and missing in Seth's collection, a little over a month ago. "It was worth it."_ _

__Seth doesn't say anything after that, and Ryan doesn't ask. They fall into silence, and for a moment Ryan thinks that silences with Seth are comfortable and familiar, filled with words they wish they could say but don't know how._ _

__*****_ _

___By Friday of that same week, he declared defeat, and with his head hanging low, he returned to the corner. Kelly didn't say a word, didn't ask him where he'd been, didn't ask why he'd returned._ _ _

___He stood there, shared a smoke with her, and looked down the street._ _ _

__*****_ _

__Seth asks him about the tutoring at the end of the month, asks about the problems and mentions more than once how he used to hate physics and calculus and geometry and all things science. Ryan chuckles._ _

__Lainy is a bright girl, amazingly bright, just lazy, like most kids her age. She'd rather spend the afternoon at her computer, doing God knows what, instead of taking twenty minutes to go over the day's class, forty more to finish her homework. It's not that she doesn't understand, it's just that she never pays attention to the teacher in class._ _

__Ryan spends at least an hour every night, going through books he borrowed from Greer's County library, remembering everything he ever learned and started to forget that summer of '03. It's not that difficult, after he's given it a couple of hours. He remembers theorems and hypothesis and a few things about Physics that used to fascinate him, leave him thinking and wondering before going home to Trey and Arturo and Theresa. He had thought he'd forgotten them all, but apparently this is a little harder to forget._ _

__*****_ _

__He goes to another appointment at Oklahoma City's County by the end of February, has another set of x-rays and blood taken. The bone is healing nicely, they tell him, and his wrist has stopped pounding a few weeks ago, nothing but a dull ache from elbow to fingertip, but at least now he can wiggle his fingers without feeling it all the way to his eyes._ _

__Before he knows it, the rains are letting up and the nights aren't as chilly as they used to be, and his birthday is right around the corner._ _

__*****_ _

___Kelly was twenty seven, or at least Ryan thought she was around twenty seven. She never said her age, and Ryan never asked. He had promised himself many things over the past two years. Empty promises that would dissipate like the smoke of a cigarette, thick and concrete at first, nothing but a remnant smell later on._ _ _

___He spent Tuesday and Wednesday night there too, on that street, on that corner. Not long each night but long enough, with the promise of not returning. He could find work, make the hundred he had earned -- earned, such a blood clotted word -- last long enough for him to find something._ _ _

___By the weekend, he was down to fifty bucks, and with nothing on the horizon in means of job. He went to the soup kitchens on the weekend. He glanced at the long food table, glanced at the people serving the food for the first time in the all the times he'd come to this place. The girl wasn't there._ _ _

___He placed his backpack on his lap, hugged it close to his chest with his left hand and ate with his right one. He sat between an older black guy, head ducked, grabbing the spoon as if it were a shovel, and a thin girl with her hair plastered back to her head in dirty stands._ _ _

___He looked at them and couldn't help but believe that he wasn't one of them. He wasn't. He was just going through a rough patch. It wasn't that he didn't want to work, he just couldn't find a job. It wasn't... he didn't... he wasn't..._ _ _

___At the end, it didn't matter. He was sitting at the same table being served by the same volunteers. He was one of them._ _ _

__*****_ _

__March 19th, 2010 falls on a Friday. Mrs. Landingham makes fried eggs and hash browns and way too many slices of bacon, and places second servings on Ryan's plate. He chuckles but takes the second servings, ends up cleaning up the plate. By the end of breakfast that feels like dinner, she gives him a small square box, and he tells her that she didn't need to, she shouldn't have, the same thing he tells her every birthday and holiday, the same thing she ignores each and every time._ _

__When he opens it, it's a silver watch, the most expensive thing he has ever owned. He can feel his gasp in the back of his throat, the way his hands not quite shake as he takes the watch out of its silk lining and really looks at it. It's expensive, that much he can tell just by looking. It's expensive and Mrs. Landingham really shouldn't have bought it for him._ _

__"I... I can't. I mean," he swallows, looks up at her and she has the sweetest smile on her lips Ryan has ever seen. "I can't."_ _

__She takes a step closer to him, the sun bright through the windows, falling on her back. Her hair is pulled into her usual bun, pinned back by something resembling a clip and a pen, a few short silver strands framing her face. She's wearing a knitted vest over her long sleeve blouse, thick wool skirt, flat comfortable shoes. She looks like every grandmother that has ever lived and like none Ryan has ever known. She looks like the woman he used to wish his mother would become._ _

__Her hand reaches out to touch his cheek, her knuckles soft against his cheekbone, down his jaw. He doesn't want to lean into the touch but he can't stop himself._ _

__"I want you to have it."_ _

__He closes his eyes as she bend her head, kisses the cheek she's not cupping in her hands. He takes in a shaky breath, holds it in his chest for as long as he can. Her hand falls down to his shoulder, to give it a hard squeeze. "Mrs. Landingham--"_ _

__"I need you to have it."_ _

__He swallows, doesn't know what to say. He spends half his life not knowing what to say._ _

__"Turn it over."_ _

__He does. There's an inscription on the smooth back. It says, _"I will always remember you,"_ in cursive handwriting, as if she had written it herself._ _

__He looks up at her and her eyes are soft around the corners, her smile pleasant and familiar and loving. She's the very embodiment of everything he never had, could hardly even dream about. He doesn't know what to say to that._ _

__"I--"_ _

__"Ryan," she says, whispers, and he nods, because there is no possible answer to that, no possible answer at all._ _

__*****_ _

__He arrives at the garage as usual, washes his hands out of habit more than need, and then makes his way to the small office. He always asks Bobby if there's anything that needs to get done. There never is, not this early, never has been. But he's been asking the same thing for the past four years, he'll probably keep asking long after this._ _

__Bobby shakes his head, but slides an envelope over the top of the desk, then goes back to the small notebook where they write down everything they do in the garage, every part they use, and how much they make._ _

__Ryan takes the envelope without a question, opens it and counts the bills silently. It's almost what he makes in a week. He looks up but Bobby is making small notations in the Blue Book, the ones where they write down the pieces that are going scarce, the ones they need to stock up on, companion to their records, known as the Green Book. The only reason the books have names is because of the color of the paper they are covered with, and the only reason they are covered at all is because it was Laura's idea, about five or so years ago._ _

__He wants to say _I can't take this_ , but he's already said it this morning, and the words were already awkward then._ _

__"Bobby--" He starts, because the man has to know what he wants to say, because Bobby gets him and will probably not make him say things he'd rather not._ _

__Bobby grunts in response, shrugs, doesn't lift his eyes even an inch. "The Beretta's want to give their daughter a car as graduation present," he says, snorts as he does so. "They're gonna go up to the city to look at a few second hand places. They asked me to go along."_ _

__He nods, frowning as he does so. That's nothing usual. Every year, at least two parents want to do just that. Bobby always goes along, not only because the people ask, but because it's the right thing to do. Someone needs to get a look at what they are selling them under that hood._ _

__"Okay."_ _

__"I might be gone most of the day. You mind the shop."_ _

__Ryan nods. "Sure. Of course."_ _

__Bobby doesn't elaborate on it and Ryan doesn't really expect him to. That's it, period. Ryan sighs, closes the envelope and places it in the safety of the pocket of his hoodie, underneath the dark gray jumpsuit he wears over jeans._ _

__He tries not to think about it as the morning draws on and Bobby leaves with Mr. Beretta, who has said on any number of occasions that he has heard every joke, every pun._ _

__He thinks he can forget it's his birthday, because March 19th comes every single year and nothing has ever changed just because he turned one day older._ _

__Only, he can't, because when he goes out to Nellie's for lunch she gives him a big smile and a plate of roasted chicken and double serving of mashed potatoes and enough gravy to sink a ship and tells him to save room for desert, because there's pie with a scoop of ice cream with his name on it. And if that isn't enough, she doesn't even let him pay for it._ _

__He spends the rest of the afternoon tuning up Junior Ruthman's breaks, changing the oil of Barbara's car because it has started making that horrible ticking sound like it's a bomb but it's really the car a couple of days from collapsing and Bobby reading her the riot act._ _

__People stop by the shop to wish him happy birthday and Ryan nods in all the right places, accepts the small offerings, simple things (a bottle of shampoo, a t-shirt, shorts that are a little too big for him, a backpack he will never use, a sibling wallet for the many he already has been given), tokens of affection that humble Ryan more than he can say. For a moment he wonders why they do it, and why he's surprised. It's been the same thing for the past four years, ever since he turned eighteen in this small town in the middle of nowhere._ _

__He closes shop early, at barely five fifteen, when Laura stops by. She has blondish hair that has darkened with the years, silvering hairs mixing in. He can tell she used to be slim and fit, she used to have curves that would go on forever, make every man in the town turn around to follow her with their eyes. The years have been gracious to her, if not unkind. She has filled in her very own curves, the body of a woman who has two kids, who loves her husband and her own cooking and enjoys sitting on the back porch and watching the sun set as she waits for her man to come home._ _

__She gives him a tight hug, careful of his arm, and a kiss on his cheek, holds him at arms-length, as if she hadn't seen him two days ago, and a few days before that, as if she hasn't seen him in forever. She nods to herself, as if answering a question Ryan would rather not know._ _

__"God, you're your own man."_ _

__Ryan swallows thickly and wonders about that. He's nothing close to man. He's still a boy who lost everything in the blink of an eye, who tried to do the best in a shitty situation. He's a boy born out of downslides and hardship. He's nothing more and nothing less._ _

__She gives him the peach cobbler she baked for him, wrapped in tin foil, on a plastic plate, just in case. It's his favorite and she knows, almost everyone in town knows, he must have let it slip one day._ _

__She tells him to close up early, that Bobby's not coming back here but straight home, no reason for Ryan to stay. He wants to contradict her, tell her that someone might need something, but the garage has very little business as it is, it'd be stupid of him to say that, so he doesn't. He closes up everything, makes his way back home._ _

__There's a package waiting for him when he arrives._ _

__*****_ _

__The phone barely finishes the first ring when Seth's picking it up on the other end._ _

__He's about to say, _you didn't_ , but bites it back. "I thought you promised you wouldn't get me anything."_ _

___"I did?"_ _ _

__Ryan snorts. "You lied."_ _

__Seth laughs, free and easy and bright. _"I did no such thing!"__ _

__Ryan narrows his eyes, but the effect is seriously dampened when Seth can't see it. He glances down at the package on his lap as he's sitting on the bed. His left fingers, curled slightly, barely grace the edge of the HP carved onto the top. He can hear his heart beating in his very ears._ _

__"It must have cost you a fortune." He doesn't know much about computers but he knows enough, and this one, laying on his lap, this one looks expensive and bright and blue and it's everything Ryan isn't. "I--"_ _

___"If you say I can't, you'll force me to come over there and try my very best to hurt you. I know I might lose, but it's the principle of the thing."_ _ _

__Ryan sighs, pinches the bridge of his nose with his right hand, left one resting on his thigh. He doesn't even want to leave a fingerprint on the cover of the thing. "Seth, really--"_ _

___"Mrs. Landingham already told me about this morning, that you refused her gift--"_ _ _

__"It was a--"_ _

___"I know perfectly well what it was, Ryan, and I still think it's a great idea."_ _ _

__So Seth knew. And the package was waiting for him when he got here. Willow's town, a little over a hundred miles east, sends a postman to town twice a week. Seth had no way to make sure it would arrive today, while Ryan was gone. Unless..._ _

__Unless..._ _

__(unless he talked with Mrs. Landingham and set up everything)_ _

___"I had to open it, to install a few more things. It comes with its very own music because God knows you need music in your life."_ _ _

__Ryan chuckles, the sound unbidden in his chest, seamless._ _

___"I like it when you laugh,"_ Seth says, sounding embarrassed, nothing but a whisper in its shyness._ _

__I laugh more with you, he wants to say, but doesn't know how. He thinks Seth understands; he hopes Seth does._ _

__*****_ _

___The first day of June, 2005, another Wednesday, Ryan returned to the corner. Kelly was already there, and she didn't say anything, only nodded at him and glanced up the street. Ryan stood with his arms folded on his chest and his breathing harsh on his lips._ _ _

___He could feel his anger as heat leaving his body through his neck, his hands tight around his forearms. It hadn't even been two years and already he hated himself. He was seventeen and he hated himself._ _ _

___He swallowed, looked down at the ground, at the grime on his sneakers he'd been meaning to change as soon as he had enough money to spare. He had been meaning to do a lot of things._ _ _

___"Ryan."_ _ _

___He looked up, and Kelly had her packet of cigarettes out, her hand offering one to him. He pressed his lips tighter, bitten in between his teeth, nothing left but a white line over his upper lip. He took one, let her light it for him._ _ _

___He wanted to tell himself this was going to be the last time, the last day, he wouldn't return here, but he had lied to himself enough about that, he didn't want to do it anymore._ _ _

___He hated coming here, but he hated even more not having money for food, somewhere to shower, or a dry place to sleep a few nights a week._ _ _

__*****_ _

__April follows with light rains, dark clouds in the very early morning but bright sun around lunch. The weather is weird and Ryan has taken to leaving home with a t-shirt and a jacket and a sweater, and starts taking off clothes at the shop and then putting them back on before going home._ _

__It has been three months and one week since he started tutoring Lainy, and her grades in Geometry and Algebra have gotten a lot better. Mrs. Wright says that she always knew her daughter just needed to focus a bit more on school work, but it's nice to be proven right._ _

__Seth has developed a deep dread that borders on hatred toward Fiction Wordshop, because he has to actually write short stories, not just read a lot and then write a thesis on it. He doesn't like it, says it dampens his creativity. Ryan only rolls his eyes._ _

__The Tuesday of the second week of April, the 6th, is particularly cold. Ryan keeps his sweater underneath his jumpsuit throughout the day. He handles a weird number of flats for a town this small, and by the time he's closing up and getting in the tow truck, he can feel himself shivering from the cold. He wants nothing more than to get home and get under the spray and stand there for an hour, two. Then sit down at the table and have a nice warm meal and talk with Mrs. Landingham about what she heard in town today. He's become more interested in gossip in the last few months than in all four years before. It's Seth's doing, that's for sure. It's his fault for asking him about the people in town, for wanting to know. And it Ryan's for enabling him, that's for sure._ _

__His left wrist itches, somewhere under the cast. He bites his lower lip and scratches the inside of his elbow instead, because trying to scratch it with a ruler or a pen only seems to make the itching worse, and Seth keeps saying he's going to end up losing either the ruler or the pen one of these days._ _

__Two months, one week and days, and counting, until they get the cast off. The doctor said that it all depends on the x-rays, but he's going to have the damn thing a month longer than he first talked himself into; he doesn't think he can do another month of this._ _

__He parks the tow truck and rushes to the front door, his boots hitting the wet ground making a loud sound in the otherwise silent night, blending in against the sound of the rain hitting the grass. He pushes the door open with his shoulder, rubbing his shivering hands against one another._ _

__"I'm gonna mop it, don't worry!" He calls out, thinking about taking off his jumpsuit, but that'll only make more of a puddle in the living room and that'll be a pain in the ass to mop. "God, I don't remember the last time I wanted a shower as much as I do now."_ _

__He walks into the kitchen, and there are onions and tomatoes and beans on the counter, but the stove is off and there are no smells warming up the place, now that he notices. He starts to unbutton his jumpsuit._ _

__"Mrs. Landingham?"_ _

__He frowns, makes his way around the kitchen island, and his breath ends in his throat, heart hammering away in his chest. He blinks and hears nothing, falling to his knees. His hands shake but not from the cold, and he turns her around slowly, reaches for her throat and feels nothing under his fingertips. Her hair has fallen down from her bun; it spills in silver waves on the floor._ _

__"Mrs. Landingham?"_ _

__His voice is hoarse and deep and hollow, and he checks again and again, and then he's leaning his head forward to rest his ear against her chest, to hear the sound of her heart and meets nothing but silence. His face falls into a grimace, and he can't feel anything but this, dark, empty, wet and cold. He closes his eyes, and his fists clutch at her thick wool sweater, and he thinks, _No.__ _


	6. Chapter 6

Barbara drives him back home, sometime after ten. He tells her she doesn't have to, that he'll find his way home, but she smiles at him in that indulgent way of hers and opens the passenger door of her car for him. He had changed the oil in this car not even a week ago. He had checked the pressure on her tires two days ago. 

He takes in a shaky breath, his hands knitted close, fingers rubbing off on each other. He's still cold. The rain is splattering against the window, the windshield, making a hollow sound that makes him shiver. He looks away, out the window into the dark sky and the side of the road, barely being able to distinguish one from the other.

He didn't know what to do, who to call. He ended up calling Bobby because he didn't have a better idea. He knew he had to change his clothes but didn't want to leave her. He knew he had to change or he'd get pneumonia but he didn't want to leave her. He settled for taking off his jumpsuit and finding a sweatshirt so he could get out of his damp sweater. He sat with his back to the kitchen island, legs close to his chest, watching her chest, waiting for it to rise and fall, the whole time it took Bobby and Laura and Dr. Richardson and Nurse Lopez to get there with the small van that's not really an ambulance.

He watched the way they loaded Mrs. Landingham onto the stretcher, then into the van. Bobby drove him into town, to the small clinic they have that only tends to minor injuries. He has no idea where the time has gone to, because it feels like no time had passed at all. Everyone arriving and then the doctor and the nurse confirming that Mrs. Landingham is dead and then going into town and then doing nothing but sitting there while they called Sheriff Carter and getting the paperwork started and calling the coroner's office up in Willow, only it was after nine and nobody there was anyone who could come up to finalize the paperwork, so they are leaving that for tomorrow. Next thing he knows, it's ten and Barbara and Mark got there at some point and she's offering to give him a ride.

"We're here."

He blinks, turns around to look at Barbara, then out through the window. He can see the outline of the house in the dim moonlight that's hiding behind the clouds. She's right, they've arrived.

He turns to look at her and opens his mouth, wants to say thanks but finds himself with no voice. He closes his mouth and gives her a smile that feels like a grimace on his face.

"It's okay," she says, her tone low, like she's whispering. Like she doesn't want to disturb the night. "Come on."

He watches her open the door on her side of the car, and he follows, closing the door with a loud bang in the quiet of the farm. He swallows. He takes the fourteen steps up to the front door, pushing it open without a thought. Mrs. Landingham never locked the door. She taught Ryan there was no need to do it. 

He swallows, ducks his head and takes a step inside. He stands in the middle of the living room, glances toward the kitchen and then down and away.

"Thanks," he whispers, and it almost echoes in the house.

He can feel her hand on his shoulder, a squeeze, and then feels it falls away. He blinks rapidly, rubs his eyes with the back of his fist.

"I'm sorry."

He grimaces, squeezes his eyes shut. He's heard those words before, too many times tonight. He's come to hate them.

He stays silent and she doesn't seem to know what to say.

"I'm just gonna..."

He thinks he nods, but he's not sure. His eyes stay closed even after he hears the door shut after her, the engine of her car start outside. He stands there for the longest time.

*****

It's the ringing of the phone that makes him blink, look around him. He's standing in the middle of the living room, his heart is pounding in his chest. He's shivering, he's cold, he can feel his fingers numb from the pain.

He swallows and makes his way toward the small corner table, next to the couch. Mrs. Landingham once told him how there used to be two, but her husband fell on top of the matching table five years after they moved here. They had both had too much to drink, and all she remembered was laughing with him, both of them sitting on the floor next to the table with its splintered leg. They never got around to repairing it.

He looks down at the phone as if he hadn't heard it ring before, and then picks it up.

He holds it to his ear for a second, two, three.

_"Ryan?"_

He knows this voice. He knows this voice better than he knows his own. He blinks again, takes a moment to answer. "Seth." It's a whisper, it's hesitation in one simple word. It pains him. He takes in a shaky breath. "Seth."

_"God, Ryan. I've been calling for the past four hours. What happened? Are you okay? Are you--?"_

"I don't..." He frowns, looks down at his left hand resting against the top of the table. His fingers are curled. He can hardly feel them anymore. "She's dead."

The air leaves him in a short breath, and his chest is tight and he can feel the tightness behind his eyes that will later be tears. His face crumples in a grimace, in pain, and he thinks he can't stand anymore, thinks that even as his legs crumble under him and he's falling on his ass, resting sideways against the couch.

_"What? Who--? Oh my God. How? I mean, how could she--? I didn't think-- What happened, what--?"_

"I don't..."

I don't know. I don't know. She was supposed to bury us all. She was supposed to bury me. It wasn't supposed to hurt this bad.

He rubs his eyes with the knuckles of his left hand, with his cast and it scratches at his nose and forehead.

" _Seth_." The word sounds like a plea, and Ryan would hate himself for it if he had enough presence of mind.

_"Just... just wait there, okay? I'll be there in five hours. Just wait there."_

You can't come, is what he wants to say. You can't come just because of this. You're sixteen hundred miles away. You can't--

But what he says is, "Okay."

Seth hangs up after that, nothing but the sound of a dial tone on the other end, and Ryan hangs up the phone on his end, the whole set almost falling on his face before he places it on top of the table again.

He leans his head back on the arm of the couch, closes his eyes. He breathes in. He should go upstairs, change his clothes, get into bed. He should. He really should. He will do it, just in a little while. Seth's coming in five hours. Just in a little while. He falls asleep between one breath and the next.

*****

He shifts, shakes his head. He's not even conscious of doing it, only does it. He shifts again and buries his face in a soft fabric that smells familiar, like home, a little bit old and a lot comfortable. He shifts again and places his arm over his face, something aches, inside and out, but he pretends it doesn't because he's good at that, pretending.

But whatever it was that bothered him before bothers him again and he blinks this time, and sits up straight, and groans at the pain lacing from lower back to the nape of neck. He starts knitting his neck with his palms, with his fingers, and then the pounding on the door makes him frown and shift.

Someone's knocking on the door.

He looks around. He's sitting on the living room floor, leaning against the side of the couch. The curtains are drawn but he can still see that it's dark outside. It has to be the middle of the night. He was leaning against the couch, his head was probably pillowed on the arm of the couch and no wonder he feels like crap. He remembers one time when Mrs. Landin--

He pauses in mid thought and looks down at his hands, at the jeans he was wearing last night -- yesterday? -- at the sweatshirt he found on top of a pile that had just come out of the dryer. He remembers putting it into the hamper three days ago. He wanted to do the laundry over the weekend, but Mrs. Landingham beat him to it. He was gonna take the clothes up tonight -- last night? -- after work.

Someone's still knocking on the door.

"Ryan! Ryan! I told you wait, damn it. Ryan!"

He stumbles to his feet, his legs numb and aching and he has to brace himself on the arm of the couch. He bends forward, right hand tightening around the fabric of the armrest, left fingers curled and touching his chest. It feels like he got hit by something, like that time he was up at the Carter's farm and Jonas managed to hit him with the basketball.

"Ryan!"

He stands up straight and makes his way to the door. He glances over his shoulder toward the open doorway to the kitchen, shudders. He opens the door.

Seth's standing on the other side, bag at his feet, breathing harshly through his mouth. His hair is longer than the last time they saw each other, eleven months ago, and the curls are standing on end, disarranged, like he just got out of bed. He looks haggard, with bags under his eyes and a little bit sleep deprived. He looks like he just spent the last five hours on a plane coming from sixteen hundred miles away. Ryan thinks he's never looked better.

Seth takes a step forward and Ryan takes a step back, and then the door is being closed and Ryan's just standing there as Seth closes the distance between them and his arms go around Ryan.

Ryan blinks and it's like the afternoon Seth left, only not, because this is different, because this time he knows what to do. He closes his arms around Seth as well and holds on tight. He thinks he can hear Seth murmuring things, reassurances and forgiveness and apologies but it means nothing, it's only background sound because all that matter is that Seth's here and he's not alone anymore, not alone. And he buries his face in the hollow of Seth's neck and breathes in rain and the farm and stale air and Seth and closes his eyes in surrender.

*****

He's losing track of time and place, he's losing track of almost everything. He doesn't know when he lets go of Seth or Seth pries himself away from Ryan. The next thing he knows he's lying down on his bed, on his side, looking at the way the sheets and covers are pulled back at an angle, a frown on his face. And then Seth's lying down next to him, face to face, and Ryan can take in a deep breath that doesn't end in pain or sorrow because he's not alone, and for the first time in forever, that means more than he can say; he's not alone.

He looks down at his hands, at the way his fingers curl together, his right hand aching almost as much as his left one. It didn't use to ache, his left wrist. It had stopped, a little over two months ago, he has no idea why it has started back up now.

He's still looking down at his hands as Seth takes them in his, and then he looks up into Seth's eyes, face framed by the still dark night outside. It will probably be morning soon.

Seth rubs Ryan's fingers in between his, and it's only now that Ryan realizes that his hands are cold as ice, as stone. He looks up and Seth's looking back him and there's no smile on his lips, there's almost nothing on his face, but that's fine, that's fine.

He closes his eyes and he's tired, he's suddenly so very tired and Seth's here and he can sleep now.

*****

_Ryan spent the following sixteen days alternating between going down 30th street, looking for a job and not finding anything, and eating chips for dinner. He didn't return to the soup kitchen, he didn't know why. He didn't ask himself why._

_The Friday of the third week of June, Ryan was sitting in the passenger seat of the guy's car. He was looking out the window, in the night dark with promises and curses, all thrown at him, just a little bit out of reach._

_The guy made the last turn right, and it was then that Ryan noticed the red and blue lights shining brightly on the graffiti covered walls. Ryan swallowed, leaned closer against the window. There were two patrol cars parked at the corner, two policemen walking the girls further down the street to the car. Another policeman, a woman, actually, had reached Kelly's side. Kelly hadn't even tried to run._

_Kelly took a long drag from her cigarette before throwing it to the ground, stomping on it with the tip of her high heeled shoe. The policewoman must have said something to Kelly, because Kelly nodded, walked with the woman to the patrol car._

_"I take it I won't be leaving you here," the man said._

_Ryan swallowed, sat back in the seat. "No, no. Go a couple of blocks down the street. You can leave me there."_

_Three blocks down, the man pulled up to the corner, let Ryan get out. Ryan hugged his backpack to his chest, lifted the hoodie of his blue sweatshirt against the cool wind on his face._

_He stood on that corner for ten minutes, cars passing him by, eyes closed and the sound of his heartbeat in his temples. That could have been him. They could have had him. They could have arrested him. He could have had THAT on his record, right now._

_It's in that moment that he realizes that if he stayed there, he would stay there. For good._

_He spent two of the last eleven bucks he had on two bags of chips and the rest on a bus ticket to Dallas._

_He never looked back._

*****

The sun hits his face, from ear to eyebrow, and Ryan bats it away, covering his face with his hands, half turning around in bed, hiding his face in his pillow. His brain thinks of nothing for a moment, half a breath between sleep and awake, and then he remembers how it rained last night, the way the damp ground had felt under his boots, his shaking hand as he pushed the door open, stepping inside, finding--

There's a soft touch on his elbow, making its way to the inside of his arm. Nothing but a whisper of skin against skin, and he can feel his breath catching in his throat.

The pad of fingers leaves his elbow and Ryan swallows thickly, blinks, opens his eyes. The sun's coming in through the half pulled curtains, high and strong and bright, and Seth's lying on the bed opposite him, on his side, face to face with him, brown eyes wide and soft around the edges. Ryan takes in a shaky breath.

"Hey," Seth says, whispers, breathes out through his mouth and Ryan breathes in through his.

Ryan presses his lips together, his eyes narrowing, not in question but in pain, and then Seth's shifting and moving closer. He takes Ryan's hands in his, touches the edge of the cast Seth hasn't seen until right now, last night, and his eyes find Ryan's.

"It's okay."

Only it's not, and Seth's tone seems to say that as well, and Ryan nods but knows it's not, and looks away, face pressed against his pillow. They lie there in silence for the longest time, and Ryan breathes in through his mouth and blinks and looks up and Seth's still here, still looking at him hiding in the soft linens Mrs. Landingham always washes.

He wants to say so much and has so few words. He has been waiting for this day for eleven months, when he'd see Seth again and it's like this, horrible and tainted and dark, and he has no idea what to say. He opens his mouth and what comes out is, "What time is it?"

Seth blinks, but answers. "A little after nine. It's early."

Only it's not. Yesterday was Tuesday which means today is Wednesday, and they open at nine and he's already late and--

He starts to get up but Seth's hand on his shoulder pushes him back down, and they are lying on their sides, facing each other, and Ryan can see the speckles of gold in Seth's brown murky eyes.

"Bobby called, very early," Seth says, whispers, low in his throat. "I picked up. He was, well, surprised is probably the understatement of the year. But he said you didn't have to worry, to take care of what you had to take care of, that Richard and that guy from Willow were going over what they needed to go over, not to worry." He shrugs, a funny sight as he's lying down. Ryan doesn't laugh. "I don't know who Richard is but--"

"Richardson." His voice is hoarse and he clears it, tries it again. "Doctor Theodore Richardson. His dad has the same first same, so they started calling him Richard when he was a kid." Ryan sighs, pinches the bridge of his nose. The back of his eyes feel heavy and his brain feels clouded with sorrow and anger and questions. "I need to go see them."

"It's early."

Ryan sits up in the bed, shakes his head. He rubs his eyes with the palms of his hands, swallows past the tightness of his throat. His breath has to stink like hell, he has no idea how Seth stood smelling him talk. "It's not."

He watches Seth sit up in the bed as well, run a hand through his dark curls. They've gotten long, longer than they were when they first met, all those months ago. He thinks he likes it better this way. Seth yawns, right hand going to cover his mouth, and Ryan thinks he could smile, his lips could curl, if they remembered how.

"What are you doing here?" Ryan blinks, surprised at the very words that came out of his mouth. He wanted to ask, but not like that, not that harsh.

Seth smiles, though, smiles and shrugs. "I called you. I told you I was coming."

Ryan frowns, tries to remember something from last night that isn't blurred around the edges, something that's bright against everything that's not. He can't. "I don't--"

Seth cocks his head to the side. "I called, Ryan. You answered, around ten thirty. I was starting to freak out, because I kept calling and no one would answer and then you said... you said... and I told you I was coming here."

I thought it was a figure of speech, he doesn't say, only somewhere in the back of his mind he knew it wasn't, he knew Seth meant it. Or he had hoped.

He blinks, nods, rubs his forehead with his curled left fingers. He thinks he remembers. He remembers hearing Seth's voice and saying... and telling him and then... and then everything's even more blurred.

"I don't..." He blinks and looks up at Seth and says, "you got here?"

Seth smiles, nothing but a curl of his own lips, and it's Ryan's smile on Seth's face. "Yeah. Got here sometime before six. Caught the ten fifty five by a sheer miracle; it was delayed. I arrived at OKC at three thirty. I didn't remember it takes two hours from the airport, here."

Ryan swallows, looks down at his legs folded on the bed, swings them over until his feet are planted on the wooden floor. He leans over, both hands going to his hair, feeling the edge of the cast against his forehead. Seth just went through seven hours of flight and cab just to get here. Seth just--

"You shouldn't have." The words leave him before he can think them through, and then he's willing them back, back inside him because they aren't what he means, what he wants, what he wanted.

Ryan can hear Seth snort. "No, I didn't have to. I wanted to, though. So I'm here."

Ryan nods, because he doesn't know what to say to that, doesn't even know if there's something that can be said to that. He swallows, stands up on shaky legs.

"I'm gonna take a shower," he says, because he knows how to say that, and walks out of his bedroom and down the hallway. Only when he gets under the spray, does he notice that he'd had nothing but t-shirt and boxers on.

*****

Ryan makes his way down the staircase, the sound of another person in the shower recognizable. He turns around, takes a step toward the entrance to the kitchen and pauses as he stands at the threshold.

He remembers the quiet of the house, the stillness of the night. He remembers how all he could hear was the rain splattering against the windows, how that didn't fit, not with this house, not with--

He grimaces, ducks his head, takes in a shallow breath. He has to go in, make breakfast. Seth will want something to eat when he gets down, Seth--

He shakes his head once, hard, closes his eyes even tighter, squeezes them shut. I'm sorry, he thinks, doesn't know why, to whom he's apologizing. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry.

He stands up straight, takes in another breath, a little deeper than the first, and takes a step forward. 

*****

_Four days after he arrived in Dallas, four days of sleeping in corners and eating at the kitchen soup, he finally found a job. Working construction, something he'd become good at, at a new office building in downtown._

_He worked eleven hours a day, six days a week, and was grateful for that, because that meant a paycheck at the end of the week, a motel room for those days, a warm meal to go with it._

_The first week in the motel room, he spent two hours under the shower, after the water had long since turned cold, trying to wash off the smell of men from his skin, off his hands and off his mouth. His skin was pink and warm and then cold, clean to the pores and under, and it yet didn't feel like enough._

_He could feel the ghost of skin texture on his fingertips, told himself he was imagining it even as he put up drywall, combined sand and water and cement for mortar that will go on the few pores that had been left behind by pumped concrete. He worked with his hardhat pulled on low, his head down, eyes on his work and nothing else._

_He could feel the eyes of the men working on the same floor, boring at his back, at his ass, at his legs. It felt appraising, left wanting. He felt like being brought to his knees, naked. It felt knowing. He closed his eyes and told himself they couldn't know, they couldn't possibly know._

_His hand reached for the trowel and he could see that it shook. It took him a minute to still it, to fill it with mortar and throw it at the base of what would soon be a brick wall. He swallowed thickly, filled it again, threw it at the base again. He'd have to set the bricks in a few minutes, aligned them straight. He'd have to--_

_Their eyes, on his back, again and again, whispers almost heard between them. He closed his eyes shut, took a deep breath._

_Only maybe they could. Only maybe every man on the whole site could know just by looking at him. Maybe they all knew. Maybe everyone knew._

*****

He's frying bacon by the time Seth makes his way down. He glances over his shoulder as Seth takes a seat at the small table. Not even five minutes ago, Ryan set the place for two, and it took him a second to realize that he should be setting it for three, not two, only now he didn't have to.

He turns off the heat, takes the pan in his right hand, holds the spatula in his left with too weak fingers.

"Let me--" Seth half stands up, but Ryan shakes his head.

"No, I've got it." He's done this before, he'll do it again.

He places the pan on the corner of the table, sets the spatula by its side. His hold on the handle of the pan with his left hand is awkward and half painful, but he can do it. He slides off three slices per plate, and takes the pan back to the stove. He doesn't even know why he made bacon, he should go straight to the sheriff's office, talk with who he has to talk. The coroner from Willow is probably here already, he really should--

"Breakfast will only take a minute, you know?"

Ryan blinks, looks up. Seth's looking back at him with pensive eyes, with wide open expression. Ryan swallows, nods, takes his seat. The pot of coffee is almost done, and Seth picks it up when the light comes on, pours them a cup each.

They eat in silence, even though Ryan barely touches the bacon. He takes two bites of the bread and finishes the coffee. Seth finishes his plate. He should have done eggs, he thinks, watching Seth eat bacon and bread. He should have made scrambled eggs. 

When Seth's done, he gives Ryan's plate a glance, but doesn't say anything. Seth stands up and takes the plates and mugs to the sink, placing them there. Ryan watches him from the table, not even having stood up yet.

Seth turns around, walks slowly back toward Ryan. "Where to, now?"

Ryan wants to say that he doesn't have to go, that he can do this alone, only he doesn't want to, not really. He wishes he didn't have to. And the way Seth's looking back at him, the set of his jaw, the straightness of his back, lets Ryan know that he won't do it alone.

Ryan takes in a shallow breath that ends in a sigh. "Sheriff's office."

*****

Ryan signs his name, God knows how many times, even though there really haven't been many. He swallows, puts the pen down, and slides the papers back to the Sheriff, folds his arms over his chest. He can see Seth out of the corner of his eyes, standing one step behind him, on his right, hands in his pockets. Ryan sighs.

Matthew Carter gives him a nod, checks the stack of papers to make sure Ryan hasn't missed anything. Ryan looks down at his feet, away. The police station is very small, nothing more than an entrance, a table with the one computer they have here, two desks -- Zoe's and Matthew's -- with phones on each one of them, and the three man jail in the corner. Ryan would find it funny, in any other given situation.

"Is that all?"

Seth's question brings him back to the here and now, and he blinks, looks up. He looks over his shoulder at Seth, and he's taken a step forward, his left shoulder almost touching Ryan's right one. He turns to look at Matthew, and the man nods. 

"Yeah. The coroner from Willow came up here early, before you got here."

"You could have called me. I would have--"

"There was no need," he says with a shake of his head. "He signed the papers, talked with Richard for a while, then headed back. Everything's in order."

Ryan looks away, swallows thickly. He wants to ask, but doesn't know how. He wants to-- He needs to--

"Do you know what happened?"

Ryan looks up, blinking, staring at Seth's face, the curve of his jaw, the corners of his eyes, at the remnants of the question Ryan himself couldn't ask. Seth catches his eyes, holds them for a second before Ryan turns to watch Matt take in a deep breath, let it out slowly through his lips.

"Heart attack," the man says, lowly, almost a whisper, as if afraid. "She was eighty three."

"Eighty four," Ryan states, nodding as he does so. "She was gonna turn eight five in three months."

Ryan falls silent, not sure what else to say. Mrs. Landingham has been moved to the funeral home early this morning, as he had known she would. He still needs to go home, get the clothes she will wear, and take them to the funeral home. He should get the house ready for the wake. He should--

A hand on his shoulder, a squeeze of fingers on flesh, and he can see Seth looking at Matthew. "Is that all?"

Ryan swallows, watches Matthew nod and say, "Yeah. That's all."

"If you need to," Seth says, "you can probably find us at my cell phone. Unless we hit a no-signal area."

His hand falls down from Ryan's shoulder, takes the pen Matthew offers and writes down his phone number on the police station notepad. 

He watches them shake hands, and then Seth jerks his head toward the glass doors, and Ryan follows him. He hadn't even said goodbye to Matthew. He should have, said a word to Zoe, sitting quietly at her desk, her head down. He should have--

"We should get home, right? Then to the funeral home?"

Ryan looks up from the ground, notices that's all he's been doing lately, looking up from the ground. He swallows, nods, has no idea how Seth knows all this. "Yeah, we need to. Hmm. I need to..."

"We need to find her clothes, something she would have liked to be seen wearing." Seth pauses. "Afterwards."

Ryan nods again, looks down at his hands, at the way they open and close, has no idea how he got here. He didn't drive, that's for sure. He doesn't think Seth rented a car. He doesn't. Then.

"Come on."

A hand on his elbow, on the inside of his elbow. He looks up at Seth. Seth gives him a small smile, a sad smile.

"Come on," Seth says again, nudges him forward, and Ryan looks up to see a Sedan parked at the corner. Seth must have driven them here. "Let's go."

Ryan nods, and follows Seth, and gets in on the passenger side of the Sedan. It smells like new. Then again, he has no idea how a new car smells like. He hears the engine rumble, start, and then they are going down the street, past the small town and toward the endless fields where they will glimpse a house or two every couple of miles. Ryan sighs, stares at the fields and the bright sky and the wind catching in the trees, forehead against the window as time passes him by.

*****

They stand in the middle of Mrs. Landingham's bedroom, and Ryan thinks he can count on one hand the number of times he's come inside, in the last four years.

There's the dresser by one wall, her vanity mirror, her double bed, the left side unslept on for the last twelve years. The paint has faded a little, he thinks it used to be a bright cream color, but the details of the wallpaper with floral designs that run waist high are still visible, almost pretty in their pastel colors. The thick winter covers are still pulled high over the bed. The nights are still chilly, Ryan also has his winter quilt.

The wide wardrobe stands in the corner of the room. Ryan glances at it with something akin to apprehension, and fear, and anger, all edged with sorrow. The doors of the closet creak as they open, and Ryan flinches, looks away.

"Do you... Ryan, I'm sorry. But do you know if she would have wanted anything in particular? Did she ever mention anything?"

Mention? No, no, never. She thought she was gonna live forever. So did he. He was sure she would bury him, bury the whole town. He was sure....

He shakes his head. He hears Seth sigh, hears movement and his eyes close shut, tight, and they itch at the edges, inside, behind; they itch all around.

He doesn't know how long he stands there until Seth touches his elbow and he looks up, and Seth has a hanger in one hand, dark green jacket and skirt. Green is a good color on Mrs. Landingham, brings out the color of her eyes, the pearl white of her skin.

He looks up at Seth, catches his eyes. Seth nods, slowly, barely a movement of his head.

"We should eat something."

Ryan's not hungry, can't even think about food. His lips part, he takes in a shaky breath. He nods, follows Seth where he leads.

*****

They take the suit, with a white blouse Ryan doesn't know when Seth retrieved from the dresser, to the funeral home. Mrs. Landingham must have dozens of those outfits, jackets and skirts. A lady. She said she liked buying them, knowing they were there, just in case. She would wear them for church, and her birthday, for when people would come over, and for the holidays. There have to be at least ten she never even wore, though Ryan wouldn't know which. The jacket has lapels that end in a corner instead of the very few that end rounded. She used to say she had grown to hate those. Ryan never got around to asking why.

Barbara is there. Seth shakes hands with her, like he's known her all his life. She pulls Ryan to her chest, holds him close for a moment. She whispers words to his ear, and he thinks he hears them, but he isn't sure. It's like she's too far away and he can only hear the rustling of leaves all around him, like it's turning into autumn and the leaves are changing into brown from a rich green.

He hears them talk, Barbara and Seth. He nods at her, thanks her. Ryan can follow that much. Seth thanks her, as she gives him a small package. He catches a word from every three, and the undergarments is the one that makes him frown. He thinks he should understand, but he can't. He's tired. That's it. He's too tired.

Ryan swallows, takes a step until his back touches the wall. His arms are folded over his chest and he's not even fifteen feet from the closed door leading some place dark and horrible. He doesn't know exactly what's behind those doors, but he can imagine. Oh, he can imagine. And somewhere in this place is an open casket but he doesn't think he could make himself get close and see her. He doesn't think... he doesn't think...

He looks down the hallway. It's not dark and muddy, but it feels like it is, like it should be. The light overhead is very bright, and Ryan places a hand over his eyes to shield them, and this is all wrong because it should be dark and impossible to see in here.

He doesn’t remember the name. Willow only has one funeral home; they could have gone all the way up to Oklahoma City, if they had wanted, but Ryan didn't see the point. Everyone that cares about Mrs. Landingham is in Shadow's Willow, and the forty minute drive is more than enough.

He watches Seth disappears inside that dark room, arms filled with the suit and the blouse and the package, while Barbara stays with him. He wants to ask what's going on, but he can't. He doesn't want to hear the answer. A few minutes later, Seth walks out, hands empty and nods at him. Seth takes hold of Ryan's elbow, and they make their way down the hallway, around a corner, where the light is even brighter and the sun is shining through the high windows.

They wait inside a room painted a nice cream color. Mrs. Landingham would have liked it. There are chairs around the room, folding chairs, and there's an area empty up ahead. He doesn't understand. He just stands there and minutes later, oh God, minutes later some guy is pushing up a casket and placing in between the flower shaped lamps, in between the flower arrangements.

Ryan can feel his throat go dry. His eyes are fixed on the brown shade of the casket, and he blinks and thinks, Mrs. Landingham never liked that color. He's pretty sure Mrs. Landingham never liked that color.

He watches Seth talk with Barbara from the corner of his eyes, and then talk with a guy in a suit Ryan doesn't know, and when he turns around, the place is already half full. Some of them make their way to the casket, to pay their respects. People are talking softly, in a whisper. Coffee is making the rounds.

Ryan blinks and looks around and he really should do something, help someone. He should ask--

Seth makes his way toward him, from outside the room, nodding at the people sitting down. Ryan wonders who introduced them. Seth didn't know half the town that first time he came, and now it's almost like he's been living here longer than Ryan.

"Hey."

Ryan blinks, looks at him. Seth's standing right before him, a cup of coffee in his hands. He offers it to Ryan. Ryan glances down at it, as if he has never seen it before. He hasn't, he thinks. Everything's become nothing but a blur.

"Thanks."

Seth nods, gives him a small smile. "Sure."

*****

Seth drives them back to the house afterwards, after the night has fallen and everyone has left for their homes. The funeral is tomorrow, at eleven, at the local church. He doesn't look out the window on the way back, only down at his hands.

Seth touches his shoulder as they pull into the driveway, and Ryan realizes Seth hasn't asked for directions once.

He turns to look at Seth, eyes wide and fearful, something clawing its way out from inside, from under his ribcage. Seth gives him a small nod, opens his own door and Ryan follows. Seth unlocks the front door and for a moment Ryan can see a glimpse of his own keys in Seth's hand. He had them, the keys, in his jeans pocket last night. He's sure of that. He always has the keys with him, even if they never lock. He doesn't think he told Seth that they never lock the door. Mrs. Landingham will tell Seth there's no need to lock the doors.

They make their way through the living room to the kitchen, and Ryan stands, hip against the counter, head hanging low.

"We should eat something."

He has no desire for food. He barely took a bite of the chicken sandwiches Seth made them for lunch. He doesn't remember if Seth finished it himself or not. He shakes his head once.

"You haven't eaten all day."

He hasn't? He doesn't remember. He's just not hungry. He's just--

"I'm gonna--" He says, jerks his head toward the staircase. He has no idea what time it is. It might be late. It's dark, at least, and he feels tired all of a sudden, the weight of the world on his shoulders.

He reaches the landing, has to reach his hand to press flat against the wall, take in a deep breath. It ends up in a shallow inhalation, and he'll take what he can get. It feels like hours before he reaches the second floor, half stumbles his way to his bedroom.

He lies down on his side, on top of the covers. He closes his eyes and is asleep before his next breath.

*****

_Ryan'd been working almost two months at that site until the foreman, at the end of the day, pulled him aside, told Ryan that he needed to talk to him._

_Ryan stayed back, watched the rest of the crew leave. The foreman sighed, looked up at him, and Ryan could feel a shiver of unease go down his spine, taking up residence somewhere in his middle._

_"I'm gonna have to let you go."_

_Ryan swallowed, but nodded because he knew this routine. He was six months from turning eighteen, six months from maybe getting a permanent job somewhere, that would allow him to save, to at least plan for the following week._

_"I understand." And Ryan did, and he would take his week's pay and thank the man and leave and not look back. He was getting pretty good at that too._

_The man took a step forward, and Ryan’s right hand, deep in his pocket, closed into a fist._

_"I'm sure you'll find somewhere else to work," the man said, deep voice loud in the otherwise silent portable office._

_Ryan could feel his jaw set, but didn't take a step back, didn't answer. The man gave him a fleeting smirk, then let him go._

_Ryan left the office and could only think of one thing, that he was sick and tired of Austin and Dallas and the whole fucking state. If he hadn't already paid for the night at the motel, he would have left the state within the hour._

*****

There's a hand on his shoulder, shaking him. Ryan blinks and opens his eyes and it's nothing but dark and black and shades of gray. There are hands on his shoulders, down his forearms, holding on tight, keeping him down on the bed. It takes him a minute for his eyes to adjust, and then he can see Seth leaning forward, looming over him over the edge of the bed.

He swallows, thickly in his throat, glances around him. It's late, and the curtains are pulled tight, and everything is bathed in darkness. Seth lets him go after a moment, and Ryan breathes out through his mouth, rubs his right hand across his eyes, feeling them prickle hot and itchy.

"Hey," Seth says. "Hey, shhh. It's okay."

Seth's voice is low and soothing, and Ryan doesn't know why Seth has to pitch his voice like that. He's fine. He's... he was sleeping, and Seth woke him up.

Seth, Ryan wants to say, but his voice ends in his throat, doesn't make it past his lips. Only Seth seems to hear him anyway, hand going to Ryan's shoulder, thumb touching the skin where it meets the collar of his sweater.

"Shhh," Seth says again, nudges him with the side of his leg, with one knee.

Ryan looks down at himself and he's lying on the bed, on top of the covers; still on top of the covers. He sits up slowly, rubs the heels of both palms into his eyes, the edge of the cast catching on his cheekbone.

When he opens them, his sweatpants are before him, in Seth's hand, being offered. Ryan swallows but takes them, takes off his sweater and stays with his undershirt, changes jeans for sweats. Seth's already in sweats and thick sweatshirt, and when Ryan pulls back the covers and crawls inside, shifts on the bed to make room for Seth, Seth only climbs into bed with him, not a word spoken between them.

They lie on the bed, face to face, close but not quite touching. Ryan's hands itch, from fingers to elbow, worse than the cast ever has. He closes them into fists, closes his eyes shut and tries to count his breaths. He feels Seth breathing, warm breath against this cheek, and he relaxes, though it takes him a long time to do so.

Seth falls asleep first, body loosening slowly, muscle by muscle, until he's nothing but a shadow of silver and black, on his left side, right hand resting against his stomach, left one under the pillow. Ryan watches him breathe in and out, in and out, and then he closes his eyes and even with eyelids closed, it's still silver and dark.


	7. Chapter 7

April, 8th, 2010 is a Thursday, and the sun is bright in the sky just before noon as they stand in front of the local church. People are starting to arrive, and Ryan would have wanted to sit inside and wait for the service to begin, but he has to stand here, because it's what's right of him to do, the only person left behind by Mrs. Landingham. Seth asked him to wait inside, it wouldn't matter, but it does. It matters. It matters to Ryan that Mrs. Landingham is given this, by him. He has to do this for her. It's only right. 

He nods when someone comes closer, takes his hand and says how sorry they are to see her gone, how much they will miss her. His throat keeps on tightening, until Barbara takes his hand and squeezes it hard and then pulls him to her chest and suddenly he can't breathe, he can't take a breath, all he can think is how he's alone, finally alone, like he knew he would be, like he knew they would leave him behind, all of them, all of th--

Barbara lets him go, nods at him, her eyes red, her lips trembling. He nods back at her. Mark takes his hand briefly, says that he's sorry and then lets go, takes Barbara's instead, walks her into the church.

He stands there as people continue to walk by, make their way inside. He doesn't want to be here anymore. He doesn't--

He turns around, notices Seth at the foot of the stairs leading up to the church, talking with someone. Seth had to have made his way down there at some point, and Ryan hadn't even noticed. Seth must have felt Ryan's eyes on him, because Seth looks up, catches Ryan's eyes and gives him a small smile. He says something to the person he was talking to -- Constance Richardson, the doctor's wife -- before making his way to Ryan's side.

Ryan waits until Seth's standing next to him to say... he opens his mouth, parts his lips and wants to say something but the words get stuck in his throat, and he blinks and looks at Seth and is found wordless, speechless.

Seth doesn't seem to notice, or if he does, he doesn't mention it. Instead, he places one hand on Ryan's forearm, the other close to his wrist.

"We should go inside," Seth says, low in his ear, breath blowing against Ryan's lobe.

Ryan looks around and there's nothing around but the expanse of green grass and a bright sky and cars filling the way. He swallows thickly but nods, makes his way into the church alongside Seth. Seth leads him to the front pew, and for a moment he wants to shake his head, say that in the back is more than enough, that they can--

And he notices the closed casket before the altar, the flowers adorning either side, and he presses his lips into a thin line, wants nothing more than to take a step back, and another, and another, and leave. The hand on his forearm, the one close to wrist stop him without knowing so, and Ryan takes a step forward, and another, and then takes a seat in the front pew, Seth close beside him.

*****

_Ryan told himself he had to save money, just in case. He had a good breakfast for once, and instead of spending his last paycheck -- two days pay -- on a ticket for a bus, he decided to hitchhike. He had done it before, he saw no harm in doing it again._

_He'd been walking for almost an hour before a truck pulled over. Ryan could see the name of the company painted on the side, and he didn't hesitate before jumping in._

_"Where to?" The man asked, a heavy man, dressed in loose jeans and a plaid shirt, opened at the collar. He was about forty five years old, hair a bit long, falling over his eyes._

_He glanced at the guy from the corner of his eye, and for a moment there was a prickle of uncertainty in the back of his neck, an almost shiver making its way down his back. Ryan blinked, and it was gone, as quick as it had come. He paid no attention to it._

_"Where are you going?" Ryan asked in return. He didn't care where he went, as long as he didn't have to stay in that fucking state any longer._

_"Oklahoma City."_

_Oklahoma. Ryan looked at the man, closing the door with a loud sound. "Oklahoma's good."_

*****

Ryan looks down at his hands, letting the words from Pastor James wash over him. He was never one to go to church. Mrs. Landingham would go every Sunday, in her just-pressed skirt and jacket, her hair pulled back in a bun. She never asked him why he refused, she never pushed.

He hasn't seen her in the green outfit Seth and he had chosen. He didn't give the mortician the clothes, Seth saw to that. Seth also found her clip, this weird contraption he never really understood, but watched her wear every day since the day he met her. It's oval, and convex, and has something resembling a chopstick through it. Seth found it, Ryan doesn't know where. Seth handed it to him just before going to the funeral home, said closed to his ear, "I thought you might want it."

Ryan thinks he should have given it to him, or at least to Seth to give it to the man, but he didn't. And Seth didn't ask for it. Seth didn't ask for it. Ryan still has it, in his pocket, close at hand. He wants to have something of her.

He swallows, and hopes Seth remembered to ask the mortician to place her hair in a bun. She would have liked that, her hair pulled back. 

He tilts his head to the side, far enough so he can see Seth more clearly in his peripheral vision. Seth, wearing a black suit, perfect matching tie around his neck. He didn't know Seth had brought a suit.

He looks down at himself, at the black suit Mrs. Landingham bought for him, a couple of years ago. She never pushed the issue about church, but she bought this for him, pressed it carefully and beautifully and hung it in his closet, told him that it was there, just in case he ever needed it. He doesn't think he'll ever need it after this.

He swallows thickly once again, his right hand tightening around his left curled fingers, and he closes his eyes slowly, breathing out through his mouth.

A hand on his right forearm, a whisper close to his ear. "You don't have to do this. Not if you aren't ready."

Only he has to. He really has to. If he doesn't, then who else will? Someone has to do this, and he's the only one left behind.

He shakes his head once. "No, I do."

Pastor James falls silent, and Ryan looks up and the man nods at him. He stands up on shaky legs, takes a step forward, and another, and another, makes his way up the stairs to the altar, stands behind the lectern. Ryan blinks, slowly, and when he opens his eyes Seth's looking back at him, gaze sure and steady, and he starts.

"I met Mrs. Landingham four years and eight months ago. Joseph had picked me up from the side of the road," Ryan says, shrugs, "like road kill," he half whispers.

People laugh softly all around the church, and Seth smiles within a chuckle.

Ryan can almost feel the corners of his lips curling upwards. "She offered me a place to stay." He falls silent, eyes half lidded. "I didn't know four years would go by and I'd still be here."

He swallows, rubs his right eyebrow with his left hand, the edge of the cast catching on his skin, and he can feel his eyes prickle hot and itchy.

"Mrs. Landingham outlived her husband of fifty one years, Harold. She outlived both her sons." He presses his lips into a thin line, swallows, licks his upper lip before pressing the tip of his tongue against his upper lip. "She gave them to Vietnam and they weren't returned to her."

His hands tighten around the podium until they hurt all the way to his jaw.

"I was certain she was gonna outlive us all." He pauses, closes his eyes, lowers his head. "I thought she was gonna bury me."

He doesn't know what else to say. Nothing feels enough. She cared about me? They all know it. She put a roof over my head, asked for nothing in return but my company? They were there.

He doesn't know what else to say, except...

"I will miss her, for as long as I know how."

He takes in a shallow breath, and opens his eyes to make his way down the stairs. He takes his seat next to Seth once again. Seth's left hand weaves itself around Ryan's right one, their fingers intertwining. Seth squeezes, and Ryan closes his eyes shut. After a moment, a breath, Seth lets go.

Ryan keeps his head down, hears the words the town shares about the woman who meant so much to him.

*****

_Within two hours, they got onto the sixty two and Ryan didn't know how long they'd been there before they took a right, got off the interstate and to a two lane road. He thought nothing of it, head tilted to the right, looking out the window at the wide expanses of green and beige and the bright blue sky._

_Ryan only noticed they weren't on that two lane road when they were on a one lane dirt road, off in the middle of nowhere._

_He glanced at the man from the corner of his eyes, said nothing._

_It was not even twenty miles after that that Ryan feels the man's hand on his thigh._

_Ryan took a shallow breath, swallowed thickly. He pressed his lips into a thin line. His hands were folded over his backpack, to his right, leaning against the truck's door. He could see nothing but pastels colors out the window._

_"Look--" Ryan started, not sure what to say after that. He turned his head enough to look at the guy. At that forty something guy with a plaid shirt and jeans, with his hand on Ryan's thigh._

_The man met his eyes, lips curling into a snarl. Ryan's gaze didn't waver, only held the man's eyes. His eyes were black, dark._

_"I'm not doing nothing," Ryan said. The words felt heavy and warm in the heated space. The guy was too close. Had the man shifted? Had Ryan? No, no, not possible, and yet it felt like the man was looming over Ryan without really shifting from his place at the wheel. "I'm not--"_

_The man's left hand let go of the wheel long to ease his hand into his jacket pocket. When it came back out, he held a fifty-dollar bill in between middle and forefinger. He didn't need to glance down at it; Ryan understood._

_Ryan swallowed, held the man's eyes. He didn't want his eyes to shift to the bill, but he couldn't stop himself. He glanced at it from the corner of his eyes, and when he looked back at the man, he watched the man lick his upper lip._

_Ryan could feel his right hand closing into a fist around the strap of his backpack._

_The sun was shining brightly through the window, but Ryan could still hear the splattering of the rain against the windshield._

_"No," he said, surprised at the way his voice wavered. "No." His voice was nothing but a whisper, barely a breath out of his lips. "No." He glanced down, closes his eyes for a second, opened them wide but kept them down. "Please."_

_The man squeezed his thigh, once, digging pudgy fingers into soft flesh, making Ryan wince, before letting go._

_"I just want a ride," he said, not sure what he meant. I just wanted a ride, nothing else. Not this. I didn't want this._

_"I won't take long," the man answered. He had an accent, something Ryan hadn't noticed, not before this. He had an accent from somewhere Ryan didn't recognize, didn't want to. Some place in the south, probably. Southern accent. He squeezed Ryan's thigh, once, hard, before letting go. The pressure on Ryan's chest didn't ease._

_They were in the middle of nowhere, in a road to some place Ryan didn't know, leaving a state Ryan had learned to hate. They were in a truck on a road to nowhere. They could park it at the side of the road. Ryan could do what the man was asking._

_It wouldn't take long._

_Not long at all. Ten minutes, maybe, five. Ryan closed his eyes briefly, opened them again. The man wasn't looking at him anymore, eyes on the road even though there was nothing before them, nothing behind them._

_Ten minutes. Nothing Ryan hadn't done before. Ten minutes for fifty bucks. Ten minutes._

_Ryan swallowed, looked down at his hands. He had left Austin, Dallas, Texas for a reason. He had left for a reason. He had **left.**_

_"I just wanted a ride," Ryan said again, but his voice held no conviction, held nothing but a plea._

_When Ryan looked up, the bill had shifted hands. He held it in between two fingers of his right hand, not quite waving them in Ryan's face but close._

_The man chuckled, low in his throat, eyes still on the road. "Won't take long. Believe me."_

_Go away, he wanted to say. Leave me alone. Go away._

_He said nothing._

_"Ten minutes," the man said._

_Ryan wanted to shake his head; didn't. "I'm not what you think." Only he was, and that guy knew it._

_The man didn't chuckle, but Ryan could feel the irony in the man's smirk, the way he snorted in the back of his throat._

_Ryan swallowed, shook his head, finally, finally. "I'm not." His voice wavered, nothing but a whisper, breath leaving his lips. He cleared his throat, shook his head again. "I'm not, okay?"_

_It was late August, seven months away from turning eighteen. He'd be a senior if he had stayed back there, back in Chino. He'd be thinking about getting a job, maybe, save enough to make his way through community college, get a degree under his belt, in anything respectable._

_He could have. He could have._

_The man stretched his right hand -- to give the bill to Ryan, to take Ryan's thigh in his hands once again, he never knew -- and Ryan flinched, pulled back, shifted to the right as much as the small cabin allowed._

_The man snorted once, and Ryan stayed pressed to the door of the truck until the man pulled to the side of the road. He slung his backpack over his shoulder and jumped out of the truck the minute the vehicle slowed down enough._

_Ryan ducked his head down, right hand over his eyes to shield himself from the dust getting kicked by the tires. He was seventeen, in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but the clothes on his back and the backpack in his hands, one hundred and forty two dollars from his last paycheck, minus last night's dinner and today's breakfast. Fifty bucks is more than he had for weeks at a time -- it meant sleeping in a dark motel instead of in between buildings or behind a dumpster. It meant not going to that fucking corner and hating himself for hours on end. Only it would have meant going back to that dark place, all over again, and Ryan didn't think he could do that._

_Not anymore. He had left that man back in Austin, back in Texas._

_Ryan looked up when he could no longer hear the roaring of the truck's engine. He looked up, hand over his eyes under the bright mid morning sun. He adjusted his backpack over his shoulder and started walking._

*****

There are fourteen Pyrex dishes on the dining room table, between the meals and the deserts. Mrs. Landingham doesn't like to eat in the dining room, she always says it's too big. Her husband once told her that she could throw dinner parties there. She swatted him on the forearm, hard enough that it made a sound. The only time the dining room is ever used, is on Christmas Eve.

He stands in the middle of the dining room, one hand holding the edge of the table, where the hand crocheted table cloth curls around the edge. Mrs. Landingham crocheted it herself. It took her eight months, because she kept getting tired of it and giving up, telling her husband she was gonna buy one and be done with it for once and for all. He kept nodding in all the right places, saying the expected, of course dear, and she would roll her eyes and swat at him one more time, just for good measure.

Ryan swallows, looks away from the table, up toward the living room. The sun is high in mid afternoon, light coming in through the open curtains in both the living room and dining room. There are people, many of them, over a dozen, two probably, sitting and standing around the living room, cups of coffee in their hands, crackers arranged neatly on the centre table. He doesn't remember them arriving, or the food. He doesn't remember making coffee or putting out the crackers. He doesn't remember much.

He scratches his forehead with the back of his left hand, the edge of his cast itching against his skin.

"Hey."

A hand on his elbow, a touch on the inside of his skin, and he looks up and Seth's standing there, a small smile on his lips. 

Ryan wants to smile but it falls as a grimace on his face. He looks past Seth's shoulder and there are only Laura and Bobby sitting on the couch in the living room, both of them looking at him with a sad expression in their eyes.

He could have sworn everyone was there a minute ago. Everyone, from the Sheriff to Richard, the whole Carter clan, Eve and the Wrights and Lainy, Barbara and Mark, Mrs. Straub and Mrs. Rutbart and Mrs. Pettersen, the three widows left behind, Mrs. Landingham's closest friends.

Ryan opens his mouth, wants to ask where everyone is. Laura rises from the couch, Bobby following her.

"I think we should go," Laura says, her voice low, as if afraid to wake someone. She glances at Bobby, who nods, looking a bit uncomfortable all of a sudden. Ryan understands this.

She makes her way to Seth, who takes both of her hands in his. Ryan watches them exchange a few words. Seth mentions something Ryan doesn't quite catch, thanks Laura, and she waves it off.

"It was our pleasure, really, Seth. I mean," she says, trails off, gives Seth a quick and quivering smile. "We all loved her so," she whispers, her voice low, choked up.

He looks up and Barbara walks out of the kitchen, wiping her hands in a dishtowel. She had been washing up? What? Why? He could have--

"Are you guys leaving?" Barbara asks, and apparently she's talking to Laura and Bobby because Laura nods.

"Yeah." Laura looks over her shoulder, at Bobby making his way to her. "It's late." She turns around glances at Ryan, gives him a small smile, a motherly smile. She always makes him feel ten years old when she does that. "We should really get out of your hair."

He hadn't even noticed they were there. He hadn't noticed at all. He should have offered them something. Everyone was here and he didn't offer them anything. Mrs. Landingham would say--

He swallows, looks down. His eyes narrow. _Would have_. Mrs. Landingham _would have_ said.

"We should leave too," Barbara says, looks over her shoulder. "Where's--? Oh, there you are."

Ryan frowns, turns around to look at Mark making his way down the hallway, running one hand through his hair. The guest bathroom down the hall.

"Yes, here I am," Mark says, small smile on his face. Ryan can see the exact moment when he realizes that everyone there is looking at him, when his lips curl into a grimace and his cheeks turn slightly pink. "Sorry."

"We're leaving," Barbara says with a smile, her head jerking toward Laura and Bobby. "It's late."

It's late, they say, as if that's the excuse. It's late, they say, as if that's why they are leaving. Ryan blinks, looks around. They are right, it's late. The sun has long settled past the wide opened curtains. He thinks he can see stars twinkling outside, but that might be his imagination. He shouldn't be able to see them from this angle.

"Okay, sure. Just let me--" Mark makes his way to the couch, picks up his jacket that lays over the arm. Barbara turns to Seth again, and Ryan just stands there, feeling stupid and useless.

"I got everything in the fridge, in the best way I could."

Ryan frowns, looks over his shoulder and the table is empty of all the Pyrex dishes. Nothing left but the white crochet tablecloth.

"Thanks so much, Barbara."

"Oh, please. It was the least I could do. I cleaned up--"

"You shouldn't have--"

"So I'm hoping you boys won't have any problems. At least you won't go hungry." Barbara chuckles, but the sound is an empty parody of her real laugh.

He turns around, and Seth is exchanging goodbyes with everyone, before they move to him. He lets Laura and Barbara kiss his cheek, takes Bobby hand and nods when he tells him that he doesn't need to worry about the shop, to take as much time as he needs. It's Thursday. Ryan plans to go to work tomorrow.

It's Thursday, and yesterday was Wednesday, and he was supposed to teach Lainy. He was supposed to. He almost curses under his breath. He'll call Mrs. Wright, apologize profusely. He should have remembered. He should have.

When Mark says his goodbyes, however, he pauses. "I need to talk to you," Mark says, and Ryan frowns, doesn't know what to say. "Not now, of course. I understand. But soon. When you feel up to." He glances over his shoulder. Ryan follows Mark's line of sight, notices he's glancing at Seth. "Seth can come, if you'd like."

He doesn't know what he'd like, but he knows Seth will be there. "Thanks." Ryan nods, shakes his hand again, watches all four of them leave the house.

It falls silent and empty as the door closes behind them.

Ryan stands here, in the space between the living room and the dining room with nothing in hands but air, with nothing in his chest but coldness and fear and sorrow.

"You should eat something."

Ryan turns to look at Seth, standing next to him, a weird look on his face. He blinks, feels like an idiot, because he runs the words through his mouth and they don't seem to make any more sense then than they did before.

Seth sighs, softly and between his lips, takes a step closer to Ryan until they are standing so close, they are almost touching.

"You should," Seth says again, his voice low. "You haven't had anything to eat since yesterday."

He hasn't? Today is Thursday and he had coffee for breakfast and pretended lunch came and went without a breath taken in between, and yesterday was Wednesday and yesterday they sat down for lunch but Ryan only glanced down at the sandwich Seth made without even touching it. He had coffee for breakfast yesterday as well.

Ryan shakes his head, looks away.

"Ryan--"

Seth wants to complain, Ryan can almost tell from Seth's tone, only Seth falls silent and all Ryan can do is look at the floor and close his eyes and take a deep breath. He rubs the back of his hand across his eyes, feeling them prickle.

He shakes his head again, even though Seth hasn't said a word, hasn't asked anything of him. Instead, he takes a step forward, and another, and another, and then he's pushing the screen door open and rushing out to the backyard, stumbling his way out to the fence, clutching the wood under shaky fingers.

He braces himself on it, hands tight around the edges. He takes a step back, bends his head, making it difficult for him to take in a deep breath. He doesn't know how long he stands there until he hears the screen door falling closed once again, and he straightens up as much as he can. 

He turns around, glances at Seth and he can feel himself falling into a routine of movements and reactions, of him looking up and looking sideways and glancing at Seth. Seth has a beer in each hand, uncapped. Ryan remembers buying that untouched six pack. It's been almost three weeks now. He wanted to get one, lean against this very fence and look out into where the sky meets the grass, meets the ground. He never got around to it.

Seth hands him one silently, and Ryan takes it, shifts his body so he's facing the expanse of grass and trees on either side and as far as the eye can see.

He takes a long swallow, and then another one, and when his right fingers are cooling over the neck of the bottle, he can take a shallow breath and open his mouth and speak.

"They didn't buy this place because of the farm, you know?"

Mrs. Landingham tells the most-- used to tell the longest stories. Stories about her past, about her marriage and her sons and her youth and Ryan listens-- used to listen because he felt it was what he had to do, what he was supposed to do, and then he started listening because he likes to hear her talk, because she fills the silences in him.

"She never wanted to be a farmer." He tilts his head, tilts it to the side, closes his eyes briefly. The grass smells of rain and cool breezes and coldness and freshly cut grass. It smells like home. "Her husband," he pauses, thinks, realizes he knows this story by heart, "he worked in the telephone company. Only one time she mentioned how she always wanted to live on a farm, not really work on one, but have the green open spaces for miles all around, and he gave her that. Her Harold made sure to give her that."

He can feel his face falling into an ugly grimace, into pain and ache and it's like his wrist has broken all over again, a thousand times over again. He presses the tip of his tongue to his upper lip, his lower teeth to his upper lip, fast and hard and his eyes keep on itching.

"She loves this house."

And he doesn't care about the tense, because she does. She loves this house. It's everything her husband was, it's everything her children were. It's everything she ever was. This piece of land in the middle of nowhere with no name and now with no owner, but it's her. It's so much of her, they should have buried her here, so she can stay in the land she loved so much, in the land that gave her fifty one years of marriage and twenty four and twenty one years with her sons.

Seth doesn't answer.

*****

The beers have long been gone, and the bottle is now warm in Ryan's hand, but it fits in his palm. 

He looks out across the back yard and sees nothing but green and shades of gray and black and blue.

He lowers his head, gives Seth a sideways glance. Seth's looking at him, body sideways to the fence, leaning on his hip, hand around the mouth of the bottle.

Ryan swallows, opens his mouth. "How come you're here?" And that's the question he didn't want to ask, feared to have answered.

Seth gives him a small smile, a soft smile, a loving smile. "I told you, Ryan. I called and--"

"No, no. That part I remember." Ryan swallows, feels his hand tightening around the bottle. There's nothing but silence around them and it fits them like the grass fits under his feet, like this house fit to her. "What I mean is... what--" It feels like he doesn't even know what he's trying to say. "Why are you _here_?"

Seth's smile turns sad and sorrowful, and then he's ducking his head and looking away, and Ryan can't see his face anymore, can't see his expression.

"I'm here for you."

Ryan doesn't have a response to that.

*****

"I should have brought out two more."

Ryan sees the way Seth's looking down at his own empty beer, and he can't help but smile, shake his head. "It's okay."

He hadn't meant to stay out so long in the first place. He hadn't thought they'd need the beers. He hadn't thought Seth would know to join him here, in silence.

"I should have."

Ryan chuckles, head thrown back a little bit, not knowing what it is he's laughing at, or why. Not really caring.

"You were the first person I met here, did you know that?"

Ryan snorts, shakes his head. Oh, no. He knows the answer to this one. "No, I wasn't. You met Joseph first."

Seth rolls his eyes, and Ryan chuckles, deep in his throat. "Okay, then. Let me rephrase that. You were the first person I met here that I actually wasn't afraid of, you know? Okay, maybe not that either. I mean, I had seen not even two months ago this FBI show where people were being kidnapped after calling for a tow truck only to be hunted like deer, and we were in the middle of nowhere, so I was kinda afraid for my life."

Ryan would have snorted beer through his nostrils, had he been drinking any. "You were afraid of me?"

Seth shifts his weight from foot to foot. "Hmm. Not afraid, _per say_..."

Ryan laughs, happy and pleased and with a bit of hysteria tangled along the edges, but calming down rapidly, far too rapidly.

Seth's looking back at him with a lifted eyebrow, with a weird look in his eyes. "Maybe we should back inside."

Ryan can't help but agree. "Yeah, maybe we should."

*****

He doesn't know when he wakes up, doesn't remember falling asleep.

"Ryan-- Ryan, dude. Shh. Ryan."

Ryan blinks, shifts on the bed, rubs at his eyes with his left hand, feels the cast scratch his eyebrow. "Seth?"

Seth's looking down at him, looking frazzled and bedheaded, shivering in nothing but a t-shirt and pajama pants as he stands by the side of Ryan's bed. What--?

He shifts, and Seth takes a step forward, and then his hands are reaching for the front of Seth's t-shirt and something's crumbling inside him, breaking apart into pieces that might fall into dust, be swept away and never found again. 

"It's okay," Seth says, only his voice quivers and shakes, Seth's hands covering Ryan's as they hold on tight, and Ryan doesn't think Seth believes those words anymore than Ryan himself does.

Evelyn Landingham is dead, and nothing will ever be the same.

"Shhh," Seth says again, and then he's turning around, pulling back the covers and Ryan doesn't know why he doesn't complain, only shifts and makes room for him.

Seth climbs into bed, pulls the covers over the two of them, hiding them in the darkness, in the shades of black and grey and silver. They shift and move, and then Ryan's closing his eyes and barely holding himself together, holding onto his sanity, and then Seth draws him in, holding him close, and Ryan lets himself give in.

He reaches forward even though Seth's right here, reaches forward with hands and fear and desperation, fingers curling around the fabric of soft and worn t-shirt, pulling Seth closer and hiding his face on Seth's chest, hiding in Seth's arms, and he shakes with the hard, tearless sobs he's been holding back for days, hours, minutes, a lifetime, since he walked into the kitchen and his world stilled and fell off its axis.


End file.
